Of failures and microscopic granules

Don’t you find it amazing how something unseen can make a huge difference? Stuff like oxygen, for example, you can’t see that nevertheless, its availability makes a rather significant difference to your daily life.

I recently had a similar experience with a little DIY decor project. While I was in exile in Johannesburg, I taught myself some macrame. It is currently (or maybe was, depending on where you find yourself on the cool-ness compass) one of those retro yarn arts that have made a come-back. And so I had an idea to use a small piece of driftwood I found on a Langebaan beach. Just look how absolutely beautiful this little piece of wood is! But I wanted a more modern look, incorporating a dip-dye method and using t-shirt yarn instead of the classic cotton yarn.

I’ve also been harbouring some dye I bought ages ago for another project. Some box-diving into the unpacked boxes in my living room produced one unopened container of burgundy dye, yay! Here is the basic idea for the project;

1. Mix the dye according to the instructions (how hard can this be?).
2. Cut the t-shirt yarn into equal-length pieces.
3. Tie them to the driftwood using half-square knots.
4. Hang the ends into the prepared dye mix to get the dip-dye look.
5. Let it dry and cut the ends to look neat and tidy.
6. EASY!

Yeah, so regarding step 1. I did not want a whole litre of dye – I’m not dying the whole of the Northern Suburbs! I, therefore, halved that recipe. Surely, that should work? Nope. What I got was a deeeeeeep purple colour, absolutely not the beautiful burgundy I had in mind. And somehow, a few unseen, minutely small (almost microscopic) pieces of the dye granules decided to migrate to my fingers. Did I mention they were so bloody nanoscopic they did not even make marks on my fingers?

Then I remembered that the fabric had to be wet before dipping it in the dye. So dutifully (and remorsefully), I removed the yarn from the stick. Wet it, squeezed out the excess water, and retied the pieces to the driftwood. Of course, this second round of half-square knots was plainly tragic compared to the perfect first-round (insert some muttering with a couple of swearwords). And then came the absolute horror!

Those minutely, microscopic pieces of granules I could not see on my fingers, once again migrated, but this time to the serenely white fabric of the t-shirt yarn…..I uttered a long sigh that should have been a cussword. Ok, I thought by myself, maybe it won’t be as noticeable when it’s dry? One can hope, right????
I don’t have much space in my small apartment… I, therefore, fashioned a contraption to hang the macrame “art-work” in the dye (yes, that is my old-style toaster in the background). I sincerely hoped the wet fabric would suck the dye up, resulting in a beautiful subtle ombre colouring. Nope, no such luck.

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I mean, look at it! Firstly, it is fucking purple! Secondly, it is about as subtle as a telemarketer during lunch, and finally – it is bloody ugly. Did you miss the marks of the tiny granules? No, you did not. Neither did I.
This project has been canned. The yarn discarded in the bin and the beautiful little piece of driftwood is safely in the waiting-for-inspiration-box (some people probably call it a rubbish box) until I try again.

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By the way, I thought that maybe the dye was incorrectly packaged. Once again, no. It turns out that if you follow the instructions, the colour is a ghastly purple, but when it’s diluted, you get the beautiful burgundy I was aiming for. How do I know this? I transferred the dye into a bottle for later use, and when I washed the container I mixed it in, the colour was….burgundy. And now you ask why I’m so skeptical to follow instructions? This here is why!