hawwwwt

[dragonlady7]

Z and I exhale the phrase "It's hot" at one another in this sort of drunken inflection, "Izzhawwwt," whenever it's hot out. So we've said it a lot lately.
Buffalo still hasn't broken 100 degrees on record, but it's pretty dire.
Z's mom is visiting the grandbaby in San Diego, CA, for nearly a month, so we're house-sitting. Seeing the weather report, she told us to just move in. She has central a/c, so we scooped the cat up off the floor, shoved her in the car, and moved in. We're visiting the house every day, but we're hanging out and sleeping here, where the a/c keeps it to a reasonable 78. Mostly around here it's the humidity that's oppressive; it's like breathing soup.
The doctor put me on some steroid inhaler or other, since I did so poorly on the routine pulmonary function test, and it's made a huge difference. I don't have asthma, but I have some sort of crap situation going on with my "little airways", which is why I'm constantly sick and wheezy and coughing. So I'm taking this stuff and crossing my fingers that it will mean I don't almost die at Pennsic like I do every year.

I have gotten an insane amount of sewing done, but have a mountain of it left. Liesl's visiting today so we can bang out a few things collaboratively, and dye some things. Part of my resolution this year was to bust through my fabric stash, which I've done rather well, but I had to break down and order more. One of the things I got was a few yards of raw silk from Dharma Trading-- cheap, nice, pretty, looks rustic, wears well, etc. I saw a friend wearing a silk noil tunic at an SCA event last month and admired it, and he made some crack about the smell of fish finally wearing off. I hadn't thought about it, but silk noil has a lot of silkworm gum still in it, and that stuff stinks. I've ordered it before, but it was only a yard or so, and I noticed it had an odor, but it wasn't unpleasant. This lot?
WHEW it pongs. It smells like fish. I mean, really stinks. I washed it, and tumble-dried it, and hung it over the line in the basement so it wouldn't wrinkle, and now the whole house, besides being 95 degrees and stuffy, stinks of fish.
So I hung it outside overnight. The driveway smells like fish.
I'm washing it again. I plan to dye it, so that'll definitely help. I know the smell will wear off, I just don't want it in the house until it's a little less... intense.

Comments

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

Wow that's a descriptive smell. I bet the dyeing will mix with the fish to create a new awful smell. One possible solution: Hang it in heavy wind (artificially created by a fan, perhaps).

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

The smell-causing thing is integral to the fabric, so wind won't blow it away. I'm just washing it over and over. The dye has stripped the smell out somewhat, by heating it and soaking it, but it's still in there. (It's the silk gum in the fabric that smells.)
I'll hang it out in the heat and sun again, and then I'm just going to make it into something and wear it, that's just all there is to it.