Gearing up for the holidays already!

I know, it's only September, and already I'm talking about the holidays?  Well, this is when I switch gears, creatively.  Another Flagstaff Open Studios Tour is in the can (good  turnout, low sales but got some custom orders), so it is now time to start thinking about making gift items to put in the Arts Connection Gallery, because believe it or not, people are already starting to look for gifts to give during the holiday celebrations!  Some items I will be offering again this year are:

Covered Notepads

Covered Journals

 

Hand dyed Grocery Totes

Chiffon scarf using Permanent markers and alcohol

Drizzle dyed Habotai scarf

Silk/Rayon Devore Cutout Scarf, Bamboo Pattern

And of course, I will also have a good selection of tie-dye clothing and my coiled fabric bowls and vessels.  Fortunately, I have a pretty good supply of those items, so I can focus on adding to my gift inventory.  So that's what I will be doing over the next couple of months, and maybe I'll even get a minute or two to do some (dreaded!) housework!  Hope you are all having a good summer!

Finally!!!

I posted awhile back about my experiments on silk scarves with batik, and how when I overdyed the scarf to darken the unwaxed area, the dye didn't take.  I tried overdyeing again, and still couldn't get the dye to take.  After discussing it in a couple of forums I belong to, the consensus was that maybe I had used up all the fiber molecules... you can only get so many dye molecules to attach to the fiber, then the rest wash out.  Well... I set the scarf aside for awhile, then decided I might as well do some more experimenting on it just to see what happens!  Today, I re-laundered it (I had rinsed it with a softener, and needed to remove that), then I soaked in a Citric Acid solution made stronger than the batch I had used before, and I left it in the solution for a longer time.  For this experiment, I decided to pole wrap the scarf to create the shibori look.  I wrapped it with dental floss and scrunched it tight.  Then I applied thickened dye made with 1 part water to 2 parts  of Dharma Trading's Superclear.  I used Rust Brown and Chocolate brown... a total of 4 teaspoons of dye powder to 1/3 cup of the thickened solution.  Then I applied the thickened dye to the scarf with a foam brush and wrapped it in plastic wrap.  I let it set in the sun for about an hour after it had batched in the laundry room for awhile.  Then I removed it from the pipe, placed it in a zip lock bag and  nuked it for 2 minutes.  The last step was to rinse and launder.  I am happy to say that something worked this time!  Here's the scarf:

I'm not 100% thrilled with the markings, but it's a darn sight better than it was!  Funny thing... the original leaves that I batiked on the ends still show up, although faintly.  And they are dark instead of the yellows they were originally.  What I love about this scarf is the colors.  I'm not totally sure I remember all the colors I used to get the red/orange background, but I'm willing to experiment to get that color again... just like a firey sunset!