Friday, January 14, 2011

Silk/Salt dyeing - second layer

After letting the scarf from yesterday's post dry, I scraped off the salt and found minor markings. I used light colored dyes, and silk salt I have had for years, and the result was not satisfactory overall. But I know from experience that sometimes, further layers or techniques can improve a project. So today, I mixed up some lemon yellow and bright green dyes, and pulled turquoise, royal blue and lilac from my stash. I also dug out my rock salt. Instead of painting on the new layer, I used an eye dropper to drizzle the dyes over the original layer of dyes. At first, it looked a little dorky, but since I have the stretcher system slightly elevated on one end, the dyes are spreading slowly over the surface of the scarf. I didn't saturate the silk, just left it damp. After applying the dyes, I sprinkled the rock salt on sparingly. Here is how it looks now, as it slowly dries in my garage:

I'll post pix when it dries, and decide then if I need to do more or if it's ready to steam set the dyes. I am also anxious to try using alcohol/water to create interesting effects, but not sure if I will do that on this scarf or save that for another experiment! More to come...

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