The last pair of earrings I ordered from Jennifer Valentine/Sacred Cake came wrapped with wonderful crunched up hem ribbon (or seam binding? What's it called?) I love that stuff. I didn't realize it was a 'thing' to scrunch it up. I actually used some of it in a pair of earrings, these:
I saw she even had some of the ribbon for sale in her shop. I have a few spools of vintage hem ribbon, and it's a really great color, kind of a light teal. So it's probably terrible that I dyed it, but I like to alter everything as much as I can. I was in my studio dying some lace for a custom order and I saw a tiny spool of the teal ribbon, so I dunked it in and the color change was so fabulous that I looked around for other dyeables, and cut off several yards of this very interesting mysterious vintage cord, which is this stuff, which I found at a rummage sale in the weird cool Masonic Temple in my town.
It's one of the spools I took with me on or road trip last summer and with the help of a tiny vice affixed to the window visor, did a lot of OCD macrame. While I was being a passenger, of course.
It's all sunbleached on the bottom so the end results of a single macramed cor
d turned out to be kind of splotchy. Plus, although this weird pink salmon color is really nice, it doesn't really fit with my overall cord needs. So I decided to alter the color. Instead of dying it, I for whatever reason decided to bleach it. Totally unexpected results, as can be seen below.
The light salmon turned a deep purple color by being bleached! I was amazed. I thought I would get an off-white with light pink tonage.
Since I don't really know the first thing about fiber, I asked a facebook friend who is into yarn dying. She ended up showing it to someone else who said it probably is silk or a silk blend. Which really meant nothing to me, but apparently silk and bleach is a wild card.
The yarn/cord is really soft yet sturdy and strong, and perfect for macrame or other use in jewelry. I'm not sure I'd use it for single stranded stringing, but I'm super cautious about what I use for that. It's probably fine.
Anyway, I cut several feet of this cord and threw it into the dye batch, and it turned out a really nice coffee color.
I also used that specimen tool stamp on the product cards, as I consider whether it is going o work as my shop logo. I like it on the cards for sure. I think I'll put these in my shop to see if they get any attention.
I also used that specimen tool stamp on the product cards, as I consider whether it is going o work as my shop logo. I like it on the cards for sure. I think I'll put these in my shop to see if they get any attention. Does anyone have any ideas about the color change on the cord with bleach?
hey! I love those colors! and thank you for the mention!
ReplyDeleteI love your blog. I have a feelin' you will have lots of followers...a "fanci" in the making!
Those textile earrings are so airy and beautiful. How cool that you got such a different color on your cord by using bleach, I am about to experiment with bleaching dyed bone, hope I get as good of an end result as you did.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jennifer--It's been a little struggle getting it (blog) set up--nothing saves until the millionth try. But at least it seems to be in gear a little bit now.
ReplyDeletecorvid, the textile earrings remind me of bird eyes! They sold pretty quickly, that was a surprise because they seemed so simple, but more often than not, I find my simpler items sell faster than more intricate ones. I get caught up in intricacies.
Please let me know how the bleach works on the bone. I used some on dyed wood beads, but the before-and-after difference was negligible. I have a feeling there are probably a lot of variables though, so I should try again. this is kind of opposite, but dyeing natural bone color works really well. But you probably already know that.
Luv yer blog... I relate to your crazee ness as most of fdevices bitches seem to all have .. Bleach indeed.. Wild card for sure... I find that it does detereriate fabric and even if it seems ok one day bam shreds,, so something to consider... Loved our vice on visor visual ...totally got that!
ReplyDelete/c u around...