A simple headband repair turned into a two-day project

I was fixing a 1908 edition of 'The Wind in the Willows' for a client, and the headband was completely gone. I thought I could just stitch a new one on in an hour. The problem was matching the exact shade of faded green silk to the original cover. I must have mixed dyes six times before I got it close enough, and the whole thing took almost 16 hours over two days. Has anyone else had a simple color match eat up that much time?

3 comments

3 Comments

claire_sullivan18d ago

Tell me about it. I once spent a whole weekend trying to match the faded blue on a set of encyclopedias from the 1950s. The client wanted it to look untouched, not new. I mixed and remixed until my hands were stained and I was seeing blue in my sleep. It's never just about the color, it's about the exact feel of age. That kind of detail work just eats time.

casey1618d ago

Took a photo of the faded spot in natural light, then messed with the saturation on my phone until it matched. Saved me a ton of guesswork.

the_tessa15d ago

My last paint match had me mixing for hours, the color was just slightly off every single time.