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No Other
make me a dress
in any colour
even with an old sweater
be what you are
in your gaudy manner
I will love you no matter
– – –
Chemistry kills me every time. When I was rushing to finish doing my pre-lab this morning, I felt so annoyed and miserable, but today’s lab turned out to be mighty fun! Also, our lab TA has green eyes (or so I think). Too bad we must wear huge-ass goggles. He seemed obsessed with having someone yield a green dye, saying something about painting a nature scene. (Tree-hugger maybe?) And he started talking about how the azo dye my lab partner was making looked like spinach baby food when he walked by us…
We made colour dyes by combining an aromatic primary amine with another activated aromatic compound. Understandably, different combinations of those chemicals give different colours. I didn’t bother to look online for possible outcomes, so I just picked two compounds that looked good to me. The colour for my azo dye turned out to be burgundy, which is my favourite colour! I was really happy about it and it made my day.
When spread out on filter paper, my burgundy dye shows a combination of two colours — magenta and yellow. It appears wine red in solution. In acidic condition, the amount of yellow increases and the colour becomes lighter. Interestingly, in basic condition, the dye becomes a more consistent dark red that is closer to the colour of oxidized blood. I let it remain in the purplish burgundy hue.
We dyed a strip of cloth made up of bands of different materials. My burgundy dye yielded very different results among the types of fabric. Some appeared almost black (I deliberately used a more concentrated dye), some turned out nicely purple, while others seemed unable to hold on to the magenta colour and became yellow of various shades after being washed with water. Strangely, none of the fabric was able to yield the colour that I tested out on my filter paper! (Disappointing!) It made me wonder if the colours would turn out more consistently had I used the basic dye. I love the colour of my chosen dye nonetheless. It is perfect.
This is a “visitor count 1,000-hit request” I did for a friend recently. She wanted a “cheesy love story“, so I wrote one. She had a good laugh at it, so I thought I’d post it here. It’s as-is and unbeta-ed.
I’m not responsible for any eye-bleeding or headdesking that may ensue.
Written for the Back to Middle Earth Month, Day 24. Prompt: Your favourite quote.
“You are the loveliest person in the world.” — from the movie Nordkraft, by Ole Christian Madsen.
