Basic Silk Dyeing with Colorhue
Doing a lot of scarf dyeing today for an article I'm working on as well as for some classes.
If you've never worked with Colorhue dye, but are interested in a simple way to dye silk, I strongly recommend it. I've been using it for about 10 years and love it. Why? Because thus far it's the easiest way to dye silk. Just dilute it with water (it comes in liquid form) to the desired intensity. Colors mix and overdye with each other beautifully. And best of all, it requires no steaming or chemical setting, and is non-toxic. It is an acid dye, so it can cause skin irritation when concentrated. I always wear gloves when working anyway.
I especially like playing with pleats (shibori-esque) and such when I am doing dye work. For some reason I don't seem to tire easily of plaids and stripes!
It can be mixed with shaving cream for silkscreening or used with various resists like a paint. I'd like to try it with marbling to see if I could get it to work. That might eliminate the need to pretreat silk fabrics prior to doing the marbling. You can even use painter's tape (the blue stuff) as a resist! What fun.
Tyger update: he was terribly ill all weekend which caused much concern and care by his family. He went into emergency surgery this morning and although he was extensively checked last Friday, after half an hour of searching they finally found a thread - a long piece of what I am guessing was silk thread (it was very fine and hard to find) had somehow anchored under his tongue (the doctor looked carefully under his tongue on Friday - I was there!) and ran through his digestive tract, causing it to be knotted up. This has been my greatest fear since he came home as a kitten -that he would swallow a thread and this would happen. And it did. Dr. Casey said that normally it will run through unless it gets caught on something - like his tongue. Thank goodness for good vets. So please be extra careful if you sew with pets! Thread can be deadly! But so far prognosis is good and with any luck he'll be on the mend soon. I will learn more this afternoon.
If you've never worked with Colorhue dye, but are interested in a simple way to dye silk, I strongly recommend it. I've been using it for about 10 years and love it. Why? Because thus far it's the easiest way to dye silk. Just dilute it with water (it comes in liquid form) to the desired intensity. Colors mix and overdye with each other beautifully. And best of all, it requires no steaming or chemical setting, and is non-toxic. It is an acid dye, so it can cause skin irritation when concentrated. I always wear gloves when working anyway.
I especially like playing with pleats (shibori-esque) and such when I am doing dye work. For some reason I don't seem to tire easily of plaids and stripes!
It can be mixed with shaving cream for silkscreening or used with various resists like a paint. I'd like to try it with marbling to see if I could get it to work. That might eliminate the need to pretreat silk fabrics prior to doing the marbling. You can even use painter's tape (the blue stuff) as a resist! What fun.
Tyger update: he was terribly ill all weekend which caused much concern and care by his family. He went into emergency surgery this morning and although he was extensively checked last Friday, after half an hour of searching they finally found a thread - a long piece of what I am guessing was silk thread (it was very fine and hard to find) had somehow anchored under his tongue (the doctor looked carefully under his tongue on Friday - I was there!) and ran through his digestive tract, causing it to be knotted up. This has been my greatest fear since he came home as a kitten -that he would swallow a thread and this would happen. And it did. Dr. Casey said that normally it will run through unless it gets caught on something - like his tongue. Thank goodness for good vets. So please be extra careful if you sew with pets! Thread can be deadly! But so far prognosis is good and with any luck he'll be on the mend soon. I will learn more this afternoon.
posted by Katrina at
2:48 PM
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