For our Ladies Friday Art group, we tried something
new last week. This was a seat of your pants, no
dry run, 'just open the package and go' sort of project.
I'd gathered the supplies over a 2 year period (yes,
another one of those "this looks cool, buy the supplies
now, but I have no time table in sight" type projects).
(Someday, in the distant future, I think Big E will be
nominated for sainthood based purely on his lack of
eye rolling when I come home with bags of art supplies
that have no immediate purpose. He doesn't ask,
"And when are you going to do THAT?" He just smiles
and tries to look focused when I excitedly blather about
vague plans for future projects. Of course, the fact that
I don't querry him about his projects might provide a
sort of quid pro quo.)
We used a water soluble resist applied with a needle
nose applicator. Questions like "does the resist need
to dry?" were answered through try it and see approach.
(The answer is no, but letting is set up a bit is good.)
The dye was an instant setting concentrated dye that
is diluted with water. No chemicals to add or mix,
nothing to dissolve or measure precisely.
The dye is delived via dropper bottle or pipette. It's
a bit odd to work with, because the dye doesn't flow,
it soaks through the silk. The silk almost pulls it
from the delivery device.
The resist worked beautifully. There was little or no
problem with the dyes running into each other. I had
worried about one of those nightmare watercolor
incidents where everything runs together, but no.
These dyes are (dare I say it) almost obedient.
The dyes could be combined to create new colors, and
the concentrate really went a long way. When we
were done painting our silk, we had to let the scarves
sit for an hour to dry. After an hour, I washed out the
resist and excess dye. It was the easiest clean up I've
ever had. Just a bit of running water, and *poof*
finished scarf.
No boiling, no steaming, no fuss, no muss.
So. Much. Fun.
The first two photos were scarves in process, the
last five photos were of our finished scarves. We
worked on top of towels which had been placed on
a plastic covered work table (okay, dining table).
When we lifted (peeled) our dried scarves from the
towels, a beautiful shadow of the scarf was left behind.
The echo image turned out to be permanent, so now
we have beautified utility towels.
I have all sorts of new ideas for this process. I think
it will be the perfect indoor dyeing project for the
winter. (Because, you know, I was lacking one.)