Sunday, February 24, 2013

Just in time!

I decided that I should rinse out my silk today, the lot that is soaking with the fresh and the frozen hollyhock flowers.  I was just in time!!  The hollyhock petals that were in the bag, sitting on top of the folded silk pieces, were starting to go mouldy. There was also a little bit of mould floating around on top of the water. The colour of the muslin had changed too, it was blueish (where it wasn't mouldy brown).
You can see a picture of it before the mould set in here.

This is the lot that I had put into fresh water.  I had left the hollyhocks in the bag and let the whole lot soak for three days.  It was in the glasshouse, in days that are consistently in the high 20 and low 30 degrees (C).

I was quite surprised to see the different patterns on the silk, from the folding.  I had really expected that the dye would have soaked through in three days, especially with the chiffon.  I had only folded them and placed the frozen petal bag on top, so no clamping, etc. The mould doesn't seem to have stained the fabric either - as I said, Just In Time!
Not that much dye rinsed out, which was pleasing in these days of very little rain.


You can just see the hollyhock, still valiantly flowering,  in the background.
The silk is all out on the line drying at the moment.  That should take about 10 minutes.

Well the 10 minutes are up and I have brought them inside.
Here they are without the sun shining on them, the satin tends to be hard to photograph.
The front piece was a small piece of pongee that did get some mould on it.  It takes the colour up more strongly.

The front and back of the satin, the colour looks stronger on the back.
There may have been a little staining from the mould, it is hard to tell and, obviously, doesn't detract from the patterns.

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