Project day!

I am so excited that this weekend I have taken some time to actually pull out some of my research materials and do this up right. I have been fermenting indigo in urine for several weeks and was hoping to find a piece of silk to dye. It took longer to find the silk than anything else.

I know it doesn't look like much and I am convinced the fermentation stopped at some point. The key is to get the fermentation going to break down the indigo powder. It seems that it stalled. I put the fabric in and I think the mixture was too cold. It should be about 80 to 90 degrees. I was not too concerned though. Living in Napa Valley has taught me a lot about fermentation. It also told me that we had another problem.

Three healthy adults and I contributed to the urine vat. The problem is that I am hypoglycaemic and they are healthy. We needed a diabetic for the extra sugar in the urine. I have had problems with the vat fermenting and I knew it wasn't stalled for heat before. It has been extremely hot here and I have even taken the vat into the blockhouse. So, what I decided was we were short on sugar. I looked it up on the internet and found that a lot of people who do this use mollasses or sugar. I used white sugar because I didn't feel like finding the mollasses. Hopefully, that will kickstart it. I have it back out in the sun.

I will check it in a few days. I would normally check it in the morning but I am heading up to Portland tonight. If it doesn't dye I will wash the fabric and start over. If it does work, it will be insanely dark. Either way, I think I win.

How about for my next project? I decided that I will need an adorable muller like Master Jim Bear has. I really enjoy the feel of things. For example, I wear more natural fibers because they don't make me crazy with the tactile sensations. A muller makes regular gouche less grainy and it makes me happier. Anyhow, I thought I would whip one up with my new glass bead skills. I thought about the color a lot. I should have been thinking about technique.

As you can see on the graph paper, the piece is not very long. It ended up being very lumpy. It looks like there were bubbles in the glass but there are not really any bubbles. It is lumps of clear glass that didn't really turn the way I wanted them to turn. As you can see, it wasn't a pretty piece by any stretch of the imagination, but it did have a serviceable handle and foot. I was going to etch the foot for a better grip on sediment in paint.

Then....

Loser's Excuse:

It shattered. This isn't because of bubbles but because it was a weakly made piece of glass that was not properly oriented. The foot fractured off first, which I thought it would do. It wasn't structurally well-positioned and I had touched it to metal too many times and didn't anneal it properly when it came out. That was the only piece of the muller that touched metal. It is also why the whole project failed.

The rest exploded right after I took the first picture. The problem was that I was trying to do everything without any use of metal or graphite tools. That is just plain silly. For the next idea, I am going to make a sturdy stringer to ballance the foot while I twist the handle and roll it over graphite the whole time. I still think it could be done with lampwork.

By the way, the indigo looks great! It is darkening up as we speak. Sugar and heat save the day!