Dyeing Silk

Did I mention that it’s hot here?  Horribly hot.  Hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk, so, I decided to dye silk on the sidewalk.  Or at least to dye it in some of my long pans outside on the front porch.

Armed with a little plastic tub and some dyes in squirt top bottles (Procion H for silk), along with brushes and gloves, I went to work.

I uniformly scrunched the silk — sort of a lazy man’s version of even pleating — and put it into the tray.  The first dye bath was blues and purples.  Actually, I need to back up and tell you that after soaking the silk in vinegar, I put it into a very pale blue dye bath, and put down that first layer evenly over the silk in an extra large pot.  So outdoors was the first varigated layer.  I did the first side and then gently  lifted the silk and turned it over, maintaining the "scrunch" and repeated the colors on the back side.

I let this heat up and then covered it in plastic, followed by aluminum foil, which quickly caused the temperature to soar.  I let it sit for close to 24 hours.

This was followed with a second layer of color, which will hopefully produce highlights.

This second bath will sit, again covered, for another 24 to 48 hours, or as long as I can stand it because I’m dying to see the results.  After rinsing, the silk is reconditioned (sort of like conditioning your hair) and voila, hopefully, beautiful hand-dyed silk.

If you’re interested in seeing more detail about this method, I have a full tutorial on Paula Burch’s fabulous dyeing website.  There is a link in the upper right hand corner of this page.

As if all that fabulous silk wasn’t reward enough, the children were playing outside in our very parched yard while I was working.  I was finishing up when I heard Ellie say "a butterfly!"  It was an amazing butterfly, only the second one we’ve seen this week.  Isn’t it beautiful?