I
have a pure silk white blouse, evening style, with very intriguing fine
pleats at the cuffs. I love it to bits but very rarely wear it,
because it needs to be hand washed, and I simply hate any kind of house
chores, that definitely includes hand washing anything. On Friday I
was invited to dinner in a rather posh restaurant, so I wore it teamed
with a black evening trouser-suit with satin lapels and buttons that
are tiny crystal clusters.
Dinner
was lovely, music was soft and romantic, and company was charming and
attentive, but, disaster happened. A litter girl of about 6 or 7 was
taking her litterer brother, about 3 I guessed (Spanish restaurants and
bars admit children) to the WC, but the brother must have broken free
from her hand and ran off ahead; she chased after him, and on passing
my table, bumped against me and nearly fell ... I quickly and
instinctively reached out to grab her falling body, knocking my glass
of red wine all over my blouse!
The
girl was fine, ran off as though nothing at all had ever happened,
didn't even thank me for stopping her fall. Her mother came over to do
that, profusely, and made a fuse about my now dripping Red silk blouse
but it's nobody's fault really, and I told her not to worry. But I did
worry sick and my very enjoyable evening was abruptly over. What
happened after that was not important, I just couldn't think or do
anything except desperately wanted to go home knowing I won't sleep
until I did something to save my blouse. I soaked it in cold water overnight, while I raked my brain what to do to get rid of the wine stain.
Yesterday morning, the blouse had turned a strange pink and naturally not evenly but patchy.I bought some lilac dye, mixed it following the instructions to the letter, then, knowing the colour would not come up evenly, I thought I would make it look deliberately not even instead, so I loosely twisted the blouse here and there, pegged some sections with plastic clothes pegs, and left the blouse in the dye for the more or less correct time as instructed, but checking frequently to see the progress and result.
Yesterday morning, the blouse had turned a strange pink and naturally not evenly but patchy.I bought some lilac dye, mixed it following the instructions to the letter, then, knowing the colour would not come up evenly, I thought I would make it look deliberately not even instead, so I loosely twisted the blouse here and there, pegged some sections with plastic clothes pegs, and left the blouse in the dye for the more or less correct time as instructed, but checking frequently to see the progress and result.
Would
you know, that at the end, my blouse became sort of psychedelic
mixture of uneven pink, lilac and egg-white, with small bits of darker
pink here and there, truly very unusual and rather beautiful!
I
now got a new silk blouse I would wear a little more often, even though
it means hand washing. Who knows what colour it would become after a
2nd or 3rd wash? Might it get even better and more interesting?
Just
very occasionally, a disaster could turn out surprisingly as a
blessing. Don't ever lose hope. I am now waiting for somebody to invite
me out ...
Next: 21st Feb 2012 An Irresistible Ad.
