Part 2 of DIY dye art piece for upstairs hall.

Meh.

Heh.

Yeah.  It didn't turn out as I was hoping it would.

If you remember from yesterday, I was working on making a dyed art piece for our upstairs hallway.  I was going by the tutorial from this blog.

What was cool about what they had done, that I liked, was that it appeared watercolor-esque rather than dyed.  I think too, I had it in my head that even though I wasn't using the same colors as they had, it would still turn out like theirs.  I don't know why I always do that.

Here's what it looked like this morning.

Yeah, I panicked a bit.  Although, if it had been fully dyed, all the original fabric colored entirely and deeply, that could have been interesting.

But nope.

I scooped up the bundle into a plastic bag and quickly went outside, breathlessly hoping it would be the wall art of my dreams.  Instead it kinda looks like a half-hearted attempt at a hippie t-shirt.  I realized it was the Bahama Blue; while in itself it's a really pretty color, that's what's giving it the hippie feel.  And the dashes of the Flamingo Pink.

Ah well.

Sooooo.  I contemplated bleaching the fabric but then I thought, eh, it'll never really come out.  What did I do?  I thought about it a good while.

Realizing it's partly the colors that I liked in the original (I'm not a big green fan; Mike is though), I decided to pick up olive green and dark blue dye today while they were still on sale.  I also grabbed another yellow because I couldn't remember how much I had left.

Then I stopped and picked up another 5'x5' drop cloth.  This time I had my choice between a lighter fabric and the original natural shade.  I paused, thinking maybe the lighter fabric would be better, but in picturing it on the wall, I went with the more natural shade fearing the lighter would be too match-matchy with the wall color.

I think part of my problem overall was that I didn't use enough ice.  I also think I may have over sprinkled the dye.  Too, I think the fabric needs to be soppier wet.  I'm almost thinking maybe I'll dribble some water over the whole thing partway through, or even at the start.  Or even layer it differently than they had.  They also had a more organized pleated fold while I munched and scrunched, thereby getting hippie.  I'll ponder that aspect a bit more.  Not that there's anything wrong with hippie, mind you; it just wasn't the effect I was attempting to achieve.

Heh.  This is how we learn, right?  If anyone is interested in owning this piece above, let me know!

So now we wait for the ice bin to fill way way up.......

Bin all filled, onto version two.