on the road to function there are many setbacks

Well, ya'll. I am well on my way to making functional quilts. Today was the second day in my studio making samples. I feel good in general but if you had asked me at 1:30, I would have said I feel bad in general. There were many setbacks today. In the end they were for the best. The worst of the bunch could have easily been avoided. See, I'm bad about labeling things. Or maybe I'm too thorough about labeling and it gets in my way. Either way, I ended up with a container that said both "salt" and "soda ash". All day today I used it thinking it was soda ash. It wasn't. All of my hard work and beautiful dye washed out. After blaming the fabric for sucking, I finally realized I had been adding extra salt to my dye bath instead of soda ash, the magic ingredient that makes everything stick. Those of you who know about salt and soda ash might be thinking "can't she tell the difference just by looking?" and of course the answer is yes. But I hadn't had lunch and was rushing things. More than once I looked down at the container and thought: "This looks like salt. should I taste it and find out if I'm using the wrong thing? No, that's not safe."

This is what happens when you don't use soda ash. The fabric on the right that looks dirty should have looked like the fabric on the left.

I got myself back on track and sewed together this top from fabric I dyed yesterday:

It is going to get a layer of printing tomorrow and then will be quilted. 

And then I dyed some fabric based on these two color combos (from my handy-dandy palette).

(don't go stealing my recipes)

My goals for tomorrow: sew together two more tops from the fabric I dyed today. Begin basting the quilt sandwiches. Don't forget to have lunch. 

And now for an unrelated rant. One of my guilty pleasures is watching "The Bachelorette" on ABC. The show makes me so uncomfortable that I can't stop watching it. Don't judge me. This week's episodes bothered me for a number of reasons that I won't go into, but I am so glad Ali sent Ty home. Ty seemed like a nice guy and he was from Franklin, TN which is a charming place. But if anyone ever told me they were "tickled" that I have ambitions, I would slap him. Not really, because I'm non-confrontational and non-violent. But I would definitely give him an angry look and tell him what's what. How patronizing can you get? Seriously. 

The end.