Projects in Progress

During the last few weeks of August, I was able to work on a few ideas for coloring and embellishing a collection of silk scarves in a variety of sizes and weights. The scarves are white when I get them and the first step is to wash them all to get out any sizing or residue on the fabric. After that comes the fun of dying and painting the scarves. It's a messy task, so my goal is to have all the dye work completed before the cold weather sets in. I can easily do the hand-painting, stenciling, and beadwork in the house later with a minimal amount of mess.

One technique I'm using is quite simple, but makes an elegant scarf, especially on the heavier weight silks. The scarf is first dyed a solid color. The dye is then heat set to make it colorfast and the pattern is added using either stencils, as in the picture, or by hand painting with metallic fabric paints.

Some of the scarves are a very light weight, semi-sheer silk and lend themselves quite nicely to sponge painting techniques, which give them a watercolor appearance. This is my first attempt at adding a simple beaded fringe to one of these scarves. It's a little more time consuming, but something that I can easily do while watching "Project Runway" or just about anything on HGTV! 

 This scarf didn't quite work out the way I planned, but the result is still interesting. I first wet the scarf, then sponged and brushed the silk paints randomly on the surface. After that, I sprinkled salt crystals on the wet surface, sprayed water over the salty surface, and let the salt react with the dyes.

 

I'm thinking about adding some beading fringe to the ends where the color becomes softer...or would that be too much with all this color and pattern?