Black Binding Tape

Soon I'll be binding another chair pad as well as my Magdalena Eagle rug (finally).  For those of you who read my previous posting about binding a round chair pad, you may recall that I mentioned that I had not washed the binding tape which, had I done so would have make it lay more smoothly when I gathered the inside edge. 

Frankly, I'm guilty of not washing the black binding anyway, particularly when I have a primitive black background or border.  Even tho I know that if the rug got wet it would bleed I still didn't when there was the primitive black border. 

So since my Magdalena Eagle rug isn't primitive black around the perimeter and since I am soon going to bind another round piece I decided to soak a length of black binding in just regular warm water. 

As you can see my black binding is still black and it is somewhat softer and will gather more nicely on my round piece when I gather it to fit.

And, just look at what leached out of that binding in only about 10 minutes.  Imagine what damage it would have done to my lighter wool in the rug had it gotten wet.

Later today I plan to find a small piece of wool to put in that dye pot as I can always use more primitive black.  It will be interesting to see what I end up with because this dye has a purplish cast to it.  So the wool probably won't come out as black but rather purple grey.  So I'll decide what wools to pick and perhaps will pick a couple just to see what turns what color.  Should be another interesting dyeing without dye project.