Today was silk day. I bit the bullet, mixed the acid dyes I had on hand (finally). I bring procrastination into an art form around some activities. I used citric acid crystals as a soak (10 minutes), then pole wrapped the silk and after wrapping in cling wrap, popped the working end of my pole into a steamer with a aluminum foil hat for the pole and a foil skirt covering the area of open space between the pot and pole as it protruded from the pot. Sorry no pics. It never occurred to me...
Here is a Crepe de Chine scarf I pole wrapped and dyed with Washfast (ProChemical) after citric acid soaking. It was blue but with some yellow to get the turquoise color and there is a subtle splitting in the solid areas which is hard to see in these pics.
Then I dyed this silk Haboti folded in fourths and dyed in a greenish chartreusey olive. I like!
And last of all, I mixed up some deep aubergine and some more of this green but even more olive. I soaked the fabric, squeezed out, loosely arranged on a sheet of cling wrap and poured both colors on to it. I closed the wrap and popped in the steamed. All steaming was 10 minutes..
One thing - no make that two things I like about the acid dyes. VIVID colors and done in 10 minutes. You gotta love that.
And wasn't it you that said you would never steam-dye anything? Too much work?? LOL
ReplyDeleteI love how you said you make procrastination into an artform -- sometimes thinking about a project makes it seem SO big, then when you do it, it's surprising how easy it is!
ReplyDeleteLaura- You know that is so true and I KNOW that and I STILL procrastinate!!! That's why I love our play group - I MUST perform. It is a real ice breaker plus I do techniques I never would have tried alone or was interested in. Sometimes I surprise myself.
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