brown-in

Color. In designing my 'faces' piece, I wanted to have a color that would unify all the elements. Previous posts show some of the variations of aqua and terra cotta in the quiltlets, face montage and glass.

So, I used the low water immersion method of dyeing on a silk/cotton blend, attempting to get to get a nice light bronze color...well, as you can see, I now have some vibrant and saturated rusts and red-oranges, but no light bronze. I have folded over the edges of the two dyed samples to show the variation of color that is a nice bonus when using this fabric blend (Radiance) - each side dyes to a different color

Next, maybe a basic black?


No, way too harsh.

For each possibility, I placed the face elements on top of the candidate fabric and left everything out for a day, passing by and glancing at the combination. Nothing sang.

This was disconcerting. And then, magic -- and this is absolutely true -- I awakened in the middle of the night with the solution -- chocolate brown! I know, on the scale of life's important challenges, this ranks near deciding which way to hang toilet paper (coming over the top), but this revelation was a huge lightbulb moment to me (even if it came in the darkness of night).

So, ta da, chocolate brown it is!