Dyeing Silk

Since the house was tidy for Christmas I used the opportunity to do some dyeing. I mostly did fibres, but I also wanted to dye some silk. I have lots of patterned silk scarves, but wanted some more 'plain'. This first pieces is some silk my friend Karen sent me from Australia years ago. It's labelled 'tissue silk', is similar to silk chiffon, but different more like crepe. I dipped it in darker blue first, then lighter blues at the other end.

These pieces are silk habotai. The photo doesn't do them justice, they have such a gorgeous shine. I'm kicking myself I didn't buy lots of silk from wollknoll when the exchange rate was in our favour!

These are some pieces of silk chiffon, there's less colour variation in these than in the tissue silk and habotai pieces. They came out really nice though:

These strips are from a piece of silk I got in a charity shop, it was a green to white blended piece, so I tore it where the green was palest, and dyed strips from those parts with blues and greens, and the whitest part burgundy with some purple shades.

I also overdyed some printed silk I had. I can't find any photos of it here, but I used it on a couple of notebook covers. It was nice in an unusual kind of way, but not so nice I didn't mind completely changing it! This first piece was overdyed with blues and greens, it doesn't look massively different, but it toned down the yellows:

And this isn't the best photo, but the over-dyeing turned out better than I expected using oranges and reds over greens/blues:

And here's a rolled up batt I made from multi scraps a while ago:

If you're looking to treat yourself after Christmas, I have a few e-books and tutorials you might be interested in. Beyond Nuno is a guide to using fabrics in wet felting, it's not a project book, but more of a 'how and why' book so you can get the outcome you want when nuno felting. If you adore embellishmnet fibres but shy away from buying them because you're not sure how to use them, whether they're versatile or worth the money, which ones might suit you better etc, then The Right Fibre can help you out there. I can't guarantee you won't just buy all the fibres still  :)  but at least you'll have back up visual evidence as to why you need all the fibres! And if there's any space left which isn't covered in wool, fabric or fibres for felting, you might be able to squeeze in a new hobby and make yourself a few polymer clay buttons to go on your felt creations or maybe even a diz for making roving, in which case you might like Polymer Clay, Simply Made, a guide to making really nice, even polymer clay pieces with loads of tips for using everyday items instead of expensive equipment (I can't be held responsible for any missing eyeshadow!). Happy New Year!