smelly flower (xianghua), belting it out

With only a few elements left to complete on this costume, I am very excited to finally wrap up this project that has sucked my life away for the past 3 months.

That being said, I was frustrated when I had to dye the belt trim 3 times. I decided to use a 100% rayon rattail trim, which is about the same material used for Chinese knotting. However, seafoam rattail doesn't happen to be sold anywhere... which is why I decided to use the 100% rayon--it would soak up the dye better than a nylon or poly trim.

College-student-style, hand-stirred in hot water for 30 minutes.
I have been watching D.Gray Man while stirring. Because watching an anime about exorcists
is the best accompaniment to dyeing trim.

Unfortunately, my first attempt (below, on the very right) was too teal. I had bought RIT Liquid Dye in Teal, and thought the color would be ok. But that was just me being lazy, I really knew I had to mix in some green... anyway, I went to a different fabric store and picked up some Kelly Green, along with more rattail trim to dye the second time.

Welcome to my bathroom.

Instead of rattail trim, I picked up a thin polyester binding to test out. I had to stir this trim for about 50 minutes in order to properly absorb the color. At the same time, I decided to dye the tassel for the end of the belt at the same time. 50 minutes later, the color was a weird, faded green and the tassel didn't dye very well. The poly was also not very shiny=no good.

The next day I decided to buy the rayon rattail again, and redyed it using a little more green this time, and included a rayon fringe to replace the failed tassel from the previous night.

I bought this in ivory. I don't know what this is anymore.

As you can see in the photo above, on the very left, the fringe and rattail are too green. If you look at the trim in the center, the color is correct! I guess it just had to dry overnight! Sweet.

This was the poly trim.