Only to find out that they only have 3 yards of it, while I needed about 5 for my project. I tried to ask the vendor, but communication was slow and difficult and took about a week, which made difficult to get anything else in time.
There were other possibilities, like this
but because of the time I lost waiting for the answer about the other fabric, neithe of them would have arrived in time.
I almost gave up, but then in the cheapofabricstore... Actually it is called I Love Textile, and they sell...factory rejects, remnants, leftover, and who knows what. One never knows what s/he finds when going into there... an upholstery brocade that would be great for a renaissance dress? some wool for a 17th century doublet? A few meters of linen for underwear? cotton for victorian petticoats? anything can happen. Generally it is full of sh***(polyester muslin and the likes) but sometimes there are real treasures. Hungarian reenactors would be lost without that chain). Anyhow, they had this rosey-birdsy print that in itself was..way to tacky. The contrasts were too high, the colors too bright.
In the international costuming circles Ikea dresses (dresses made from Ikea duvet covers) are abound, and though we do have Ikea here, I did not want to go that route... mostly because there a ton of those dresses around, and if everyone else have one... I don't want it. However, reading a lot about those dresses one info got caught in my mind, according to which someone dyed the fabric to make it look.... different, more appropriate, worn. etc. I am no stranger to dyeing stuff, yarn and fiber are regulars in my kitchen, if fact I even dyed some fabric a couple of years ago, when I made my early 17th century workwoman dress. Even the one I am wearing on the pictures of the Sárospatak post was dyed by me.
So when I bumped in the fabric, I thoough I could just try to tone it down... and make it blue. I asked for a small piece to test it and dunked into a small pot of jeansblue dye... or at least I believed it was jeansblue. I must have mixed the small bags with the dye-powder as the test piece turned out to be green.
(The pictures were taken late at night, the base color of the original fabic IS white). BUT saw that the idea was not bad at all. Overdyeing toned down the to bight colors, lessened the contrast between the base and the print, and gave it a bit of antique feeling.
I dunked the 6 meters of fabric (I call the store cheapofabric store for a reason, fabrics really cost little there, I could be generous with how much I buy and allow for errors) into the washing machine added half a bottle of 20% winegar, turned up the temperature the machine was supposed to wash to the highest possible setting (90°C) and had it turned the fabric a few times and turned off to let the it soak. In the meanwhile in an other pot (I am using it to yarn-dyeing anyway) I heated up about 2 liters of water, added vinegar and salt, and solved the dye-powders until I got the color I liked, in higher saturation I wanted the end results (The color was mixed from light blue, skye blue and some cornflower blue- I will never be able to repeat it I am afraid).
Added the solution to the washing machine, then I let the machine add more water and heat it up again to the maximum, while tossing and turning the fabric. Turned off the machine, let the whole thing cooled and turned up again, but this time I let the cycle run trough and rinse the fabric three times (by the third time the rinse came out almost clear) and spin it.
After I put it out the drying line and when it was almost dry, ironed the whole piece.
With this process, beside the dyeing, the fabric was throroughly preshrunk. I don't think I will have to deal with shrinkage issues
(The original and the dyed fabric).
Now I had the fabric I liked, the next step was doing something about the pattern.
See you next time
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