Brown is the color…

Today at Quiet time there were many students eager to help and observe as we dyed old toweling that will become our little stuffed water voles.  The announcement that we would soon begin making our next animal was greeted with great excitement.  Now we frequently hear, “When are we starting to make our voles?”  The fabric was cut into 7″ squares along with eleven pairs of tiny round ears. Someone counted to be sure we had enough ears.  When asked how many we needed, she hesitated only a minute before saying, “First I will count out eleven in one pile, and then I will count out eleven more in another pile.”  Great reasoning.

Two students got all the fabric thoroughly wet in a pan in the sink.  Two others then squeezed each piece out. A student stirred salt into warm water, another carefully mixed the dye powder with hot water (gently so it wouldn’t splash), and many stood and watched as the dye mix was poured into the water in the big stainless steel container (slightly dented but a great deal YEARS ago from a restaurant supply store).  “It looks black!”  We watched the dye darken all the water… mixed by the rubber gloved teacher!  They questioned why it didn’t go through the gloves and what would happen if it did.

Are you still there?  This is a process.  Next the vole fabric was added to the dye bath.  “Oooo… it’s brown!”  “It does look like fur now.”  It had to be mixed around for 15 minutes and then stayed in the dye for the whole time the children were in P.E.  During last period our future voles were rinsed with cold water and later taken home by the teacher to be washed in warm water.  We will start our voles on Monday.  …. more sewing coming up!