Thursday 27th September 2012
Well what a day,
I had decided to try and dye the cushion in the saloon and dinette instead of forking out huge amounts of money to get them recovered.
So trusty google came into the picture again, this has been going on for awhile.
I have researched and researched, to try and find out the best way to go about this, and the best dye.
Well I have to say you almost need a degree in dyeing, man there is so many different dyes out there I had no idea.
My experience in dyeing is not great, yeah I have done the occasional pair of black pants, and thats about it.
Then you have to know what material it is, how much it weighs, how are you going to do it, in a tub, in a washing machine, on the stove......this one I love, can really see me burning all the covers......yeah still have problems with that stove.
Then the colors, man this may just be too hard.
So after many a sleepless nights I order some dye in navy blue, and went the easy way you just pop it in the washing machine with a cup of salt and that's about it, the catch is you need to have the wash cycle going for an hour or so, in hot water.
So the big day arrived, the dye came this morning.....yay,then omg.
I don't have a washing machine to use so the wash bucket will have to do, many a discussion was happening on where to do it, how to get hot water to it and how to be careful that no other boat around including our own does not end up tie dyed in the process.
So me being me, says what the hell, am just gonna do it here on the jetty beside us, I have a hose, and we can boil hot water on the stove, easy.
So get everything ready, read the instructions, I have to now weigh the dry fabric, ok next problem, how to weigh, I ended up finding a fish weight thingy with a hook on the end, perfect, so weigh 2lbs of covers, which is around two covers, then I washed them then rinsed them.
Then have saucepans of hot water boiling on the stove.
Now into the bucket goes the dye, a cup of salt saucepans full of hot water, then the covers, then more water as they have to be able to move freely around, but not enough water to weaken the dye.... :-/
Man where is that degree when you need it.
So now me sitting on a bucket with a big stick, actually plastic pipe that the Captain uses to steer the dingy, and I have to keep this lot moving around for an hour.
I kinda felt like a witch, with a big cauldron of brew, by the time I finished I was chanting and cursing just about everybody on the planet.
So the hour was up, then to carefully rinse till the water runs clear, pop in some fixative, wash again then done.
This had to be done eight times over, are you kidding me, I ended up doubling up on some, I think I did it about 6 times, and it took all day it was actually getting dark, when I finished.
I wanted to then take them to the laundromat, to give them a final rinse and dry them in there dryers.
So after hours there we finally came home with our newly dyed covers, are they navy?
No,do they look great not really, was it a waste of time, you bet, but to be honest we have not put them back on yet so tomorrow we will see how bad or good they look.
Right at the moment I feel like I have been hit by a truck.
Oh and not one single boat got tie dyed, just me, am covered in dye from head to toe.
Well tomorrow is another day.