So Ugly, I Couldn't Give Them Away....

The secret container in the bowels of my basement contains the above plus the following:

Class Dyeing Projects Gone Awry...

What Was I Thinking...

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time....

So That is What Those Dyes Look Like Together (I was Better Off Not Knowing)....

They Said They Were PFD...

Experiments in Purple (or Trying to Find the Perfect Purple).....

Maybe Overdyeing Will Fix This (NOT)....

Maybe Discharging Will Fix This (also NOT)...

Now you know the truth!! I make horrible mistakes in dyeing and have a big Rubbermaid container in my basement keeping them from the world. Occasionally, I bring them out and offer them up for free during classes and discharging sessions. Yes, these are so bad that I can't even give them away!!

But I now know they are the most incredible backdrops for doing marbling!! Marbling on colors is very, very forgiving -- you don't see all the little mistakes that you see on the stark white background. I do use both transparent and semi-transparent paints when marbling over color. If the marbling color is light, I will add a little titanium white which is pretty opaque and which pops the color a little. I also tend to work on analogous colors so I will marble over a purple with all shades of blues and a little purple, red with yellows, oranges and reds etc. When working with transparents, this prevents the uglies (those unpredictable mud colors that happen when mixing complementary colors). I don't like using fully opaque paints with marbling as they tend to slough off more when you are rinsing and leave a bit of a mess.

Today, I alum-ed up perhaps 20 yards of my supreme uglies hoping to transform many of them into nice pieces of fabric!! It seems clear, however, that there could be another category -- Maybe Marbling Will Fix This....

This was a piece of rust colored shiboried fabric -- the color was ugly and the pattern was nothing to write home about. I like its new incarnation.
This was a piece of Joann's "finest" cotton dyed a pale orange and very boring.

This was also from my very early days of dyeing when I used Joanns white Country Classics fabric which was terribly flawed, but it was white! This had been dyed a pale yucky purple.

Same as above. I really like this new incarnation!

Again, same as above, a palish lavender/purple -- very nondescript and the kind of purple you get when the reds and blues don't quite mix. It is much happier this way!