Great day!

Ever have one of those days when you were "in the zone"?  Well, that's what it's felt like for me today.  I have been trying some new techniques, and working on some products for a potential sale to a gift shop, and it just seems like things were falling right into place today.  First off, I have to thank Beth from Maine for her post here about a playdate she had with a friend... they used textile paints on scarves that they had batiked with soy wax.  I have had some problems with trying to overdye silk scarves after dyeing and using soy wax... the next dye bath didn't take, and I have been told that it is very difficult to overdye silk... something about not as many places in silk for the dye to bind to compared to cotton.  Very frustrating!  But today, I tryed Dy-Na-Flow fabric paint for the first time, and I'm overjoyed at my results!

The scarf was dyed first, using Procion MX dyes.  Then I applied soy wax to resist the next layer of color.  I used a pattern similar to one Beth mentioned in her post, only I applied the wax with a foam brush in a basket weave pattern... Beth used an antique potato masher on her scarf.  The photo above shows the scarf laid out on my work table with plastic and newspaper underneath.

Here is the scarf after I applied the Dy-Na-Flow.  I used black, and applied it with a car-wash sponge that I cut down to fit into a margerine tub.  I used my rubber gloves, thank goodness, because paint is just as hard to get out as dye, and I definitely would have had black hands if I hadn't worn the gloves!

I let the paint dry, then I used a hot iron and pressed it between sheets of newspaper to remove the wax and heat-set the paint.  Then I washed and dried again.

Here it is!  I'm so happy with how it came out, and can't wait to do more projects with Dy-Na-Flow!  Thanks, Beth!