Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 16:46:45 -0400
From: “N.A. Booko”
Subject: A Color to Dye For . . . .
I was in Walmart last week and noticed there was a display of Rit Dyes- I just couldn’t believe anyone is still going thru that drudgery to have a new or different color. The company did not show complete directions on the outside of the packet, because all that boiling and stirring would be a real turnoff to a first time dyer. It is a hot, time consuming job.
I first moved to Chatham County in the the early 1970s, I died some fabric to make kitchen curtains and swore that would be the last time I ever got involved with that!
When I was a pre prepubescent teenager and got my own room, I became an instant decorator. We lived in a mill village, all the houses were just alike and everyone had the same choice of colors for their rooms: Baby blue, baby pink, baby yellow, kitchen green- white was only used for the ceilings. Everybody had a green kitchen. No one wanted a green living room. I didn’t like any of the colors for my room and I insisted that I had to have lavender walls. UNHEARD OF! After much- a- do and complaining, Woodrow, the mill company painter agreed to stray from the norm and paint my room an ‘almost lavender’. He mixed blue and pink paint and Walla! My walls were the talk of the village! How dare he? How could he? Is he a little warped?
I had hand-me-down ugly beige lace curtains that just looked awful with the lavender walls. No money to buy new- I had to do something.
Before the days of ecology and ‘save the planet’, this good ole’ mill channeled the dyes from coloring cotton yarns into the local stream that ran near the mill, through the village and out into the woods somewhere. Different days- different colored water. I waited until the day the color was just right, grabbed my curtains and hightailed it down to the stream and plunged them into the beautiful swirling, gushing deep purple waters. I left them there a couple of hours. Wrung them out, stretched to shape and let them dry on some nearby willows.
Three shades deeper than my lavender walls, the color was a touch of genius . . . The village stood silent- no one knew what to think or say- They knew I had lost my mind- once again . . .
N.A. Booko
N.A. Booko lives in Chatham County and will probably dye there . . .