southern child in the city...: oy...

So last night's dress cooking didn't go 100% according to plan...

As in, the lace went in the pot and came out of the pot. That's about the only part that worked out. The rest...well, let's just say I started looking for a place to by new dye at 7 this morning.

So I had to strip the fabric again. (I don't know what this lace is made out of but it might be the most durable lace in the world. It has now been washed, bleached, dyed, stripped, dyed again, stripped again, and dyed one more time, and it is totally fine. It's like the Superman of lace.)

Here it is after the last stripping, I think, (who knows at this point) and that's the fabric for the dress beneath.

By 9 am today, I had purchased every ounce of dye I could get my hands on...organic, hot water, cold water, protein based, blah blah blah...didn't matter.

Is it a neutral? Fine. Give it to me!

After about a dozen tries, my swatches were starting to look more like a rainbow and less like a potential wedding gown. How on earth does a box labeled "tan" turn something lilac???

Wanna guess which one came from the tan box?

Two more hours passed, and I was finally ready to try again. But this time, I was pulling out the big guns...

One pot wasn't going to cut it this time.

It took eight pots and four tea kettles of boiling water, a little ecru iDye, a touch of yellow, and a big plastic storage container to contain my new batch of dress soup.

I accidentally used our bamboo spoon from that fancy home store in Sag Harbor that I can never remember the name of to agitate the fabric. (Oops again.) But it is very important to stir, stir, stir!