Browsed by
Tag: silk

Dyeing Silk with MX Dye

Dyeing Silk with MX Dye

Comments 12 comments

I dye my own silk and one of the ways I do that is with MX dye. MX Dye is a fiber reactive dye and works on cellulose or plant fibers like cotton , linen and hemp. It also works on silk. As far as I know silk is the only fiber that you can use both weak acid dyes that are for protein fibers and the MX dyes on.

Scarves blowing in the wind.

I like to use the low water dye method. With this method you use a jar and just a little water. What I do is scrunch or twist or pleat up my silk to be dyed. In this case they are all about 2 feet wide and 8 feet long. Then you pack it into the bottom of a jar that is big enough to hold the silk and the dye (1/2 a cup) and the fixative (1/4-1/2 cup).  It is important that it be a snug fit for this method to work.

I mix up 2 colours of MX dye in 1/4 cup of room temperature water. Pour them over the silk in the jar one at a time making sure they silk is covers with liquid. If it floats as you can see a couple of my jars did you need to carefully weight them down with something non metal. Metal will effect the dye. Once the dye is in the jar you don’t want to disturb them. You don’t want the dyes to mix completely and give you a solid colour.

dye in jars

I am very impatient. So I usually go do something else for 20 min to an hour then I come back and add the fixative. With MX dye you have to raise the PH to get the dye to stick. The cheapest thing for this is PH up from the pool store.  You can use washing soda( not bicarbonate of soda) or order it from your dye supplier but pool chemical is cheap especially at the end of the season. I add a tablespoon for each cup of water including the mix water. Stir to dissolve and then pour it into the jar.  You should leave it for an hour to react but I am impatient as I said and usually dump everything out after about 20 min. Rinse the silk in cold water then hot soapy water then one more cold. Here are some results.

I am sorry the pictures aren’t better but the wind wouldn’t cooperate.  They were dry in about 10 min. If you want really good detailed instructions I would read about it on Paula Burch’s site. http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/lowwaterimmersion.shtml

Outdoor Show

Outdoor Show

Comments 6 comments

Over the years I have done several outdoor shows and they are great venues. This week-end I did one I hadn’t done before and it should have been a great show. It is primarily an art show with may visual artists, potters and unique jewellers. However it rained all week-end and hardly anything was sold by anyone.

A favourite topic is always booth design; how best to display your products and how best to entice people into your booth. A lot depends on the amount of space you have.  Here is a picture of my booth on a rainy weekend in June. For me it feels very crowded with the walls of the tent on. This was during a brief dry period so I could get a couple of things out front.

At The New Art Festival.

Although the sale wasn’t great I did get to meet lots of other artists and had time to chat with them. I have been inspired to knit myself a cool shawl. I am not sure how long it will take. I am not a knitter at all but when I get it done I will blog about it.

Here is a shot  inside my booth.

I am going to post some more pictures over on the Felt and Fiber Forum  if you want to give a long critique or detailed suggestions pop over and have a look.

Silk Paper

Silk Paper

Comments 10 comments

Over on the Felting and Fiber Forum, we’ve been talking about silk paper on and off over the last few weeks. It started when Pam showed us this gorgeous silk vase and then a beautiful silk box made from delicate silk hankies, threads and Angelina fibres. Then Karen was inspired to try making silk paper and after finding some silks work better with different methods, made some gorgeous pieces.

Once all the hard work had been done 😉 I thought I’d give it a go too. I decided to just jump in and try it with spray starch. I’d read a few years ago that it was possible to make silk paper by spraying a layer of silk fibres with laundry starch, adding another layer of silk fibres and spraying that, then covering with baking parchment and ironing until it was dried. Well, it’s almost that easy. It’s hard to get the spray from the can of starch onto the fibres without blowing them away, so it takes a bit of practice to get the spray to ‘drizzle’. I found it helpful to spray first, so after a few trials, I got an old piece of cotton cloth and layed it onto brown parcel paper, sprayed the cloth with starch, added a layer of silk, drizzled then sprayed starch onto that, then added more silk, more starch, then covered with another layer of cloth, another piece of parcel paper and ironed it on both sides until it was dry.

The results were mostly really good. A few times, the layers wanted to separate, but then I had two layers of finer silk paper. I used one of these thinner layers to test out the silk paper before I made more. You can see a photo of before felting here, and after felting here. These are some of the silk papers I made, they are mostly dyed mulberry and tussah silk.

I did a small trial piece of felt using the tufty bits from around the edges of the silk paper. From this, I realised I needed to use bolder colours for the background so the silk paper could stand out more for the result I wanted. For this second piece, I started off with a layout approximately 34.5 x 34.5 cm

It shrank a lot from top to bottom, and finished up roughly 22 x 33 cm. I didn’t particularly position the silk paper pieces so that the fibres were running top to bottom, and a lot were two layers, so I’m not really sure why there was so much uneven shrinkage, but I’d noticed it on the trial piece too. Both pieces had two even layers of merino tops.

There were a few pieces of the silk paper which were thicker or had a lot of starch on, which took a little more work to felt in, but as you can see from this angle, the silk paper felts in well to the surface.

Lyn from rosiepink recommended the book ‘Handmade Silk Paper’ by Kath Russon, so I’m hoping to have a read through that soon and try the wallpaper paste method of making silk paper. Have you made silk paper or paper from any other fibres? Do you use it in felting or something else? I’d love to hear about it or see photos if you have 🙂

A Few Felt Samples

A Few Felt Samples

Comments 10 comments

I haven’t been doing much that is interesting to look at lately. Everything is white and is waiting for the dye pot.  I thought I would show you some samples a made a little while ago. The first 2  are purple merino with some silk strips on them. I thought they came out nicely with lots of texture.

Purple wool with strips of silk before felting
Purple samples after felting

The second is orange merino with some silk and curls on it, here I wanted to felt the curls right into the background. I also wanted to see how it would stick if I put it over the silk. I really like the way the little blob of curls all became one with nice texture. The curls going across the silk stuck down very well. Enough wool migrated through the silk to grab the courser wool of the curls.

Orange wool with silk and curls before felting
Orange sample after felting

This last set I wanted the curls to be attached at the base and left loose and hanging for the rest of their length. I use a small piece of scrap floor underlay with a hole in it so the wouldn’t stick down. It worked very well. I am not sure how I ended up with one really long curl.

Small samples with curls with their resists on before felting
Small samples with curls after felting.

I am not sure what I am gong to do with these. I might make some buttons or hair clips. Do you have any ideas?

Nuno Felt and Abstracts

Nuno Felt and Abstracts

Comments 12 comments

I’ve been doing a lot of nuno felting recently, mostly a lot of samples for reference, but also quite a few pieces for using to make into things at a later stage. One thing I like to do with nuno felting is use different types of silk together. I think the differences in thickness, sheen and texture work well together and highlight each others’ properties. These two pieces use hand dyed silk ponge 5mm, which is floaty and shiny, and also silk chiffon 3.5mm which, though lighter, almost seems heavier than the ponge because of its ‘rough’ texture. For this first piece I used strips of silk in roughly equal widths.

This close up shows the difference in the textures of the two types of silk, and also the differences in the way they felt. The silk chiffon seems to sink into the felt, becoming more a part of it than an embellishment or surface texture.

For the second piece, I used smaller pieces of silk to create a kind of mosaic effect.

Close up:

Another thing I’ve been working on lately is Ann’s 2nd Quarter Studio Challenge. I’ve been looking through photos for inspiration, taking photos, editing, altering… trying to think what technique would work best with different pictures etc. One of my favourite photos is of a bunch of tulips in the snow. I tried a few different techniques in Photoshop to alter the photo and make it more abstract. This is a collection of the original (top left) and 3 abstract versions.

Thinking about the simplest way to achieve all the different shades of pink, I thought about organza and how using 3 pieces of the same colour can give 3 shades when layered. So I got out my organza collection to have a look through the shades. I hadn’t realised I had so many until they were all out together!

Seeing all the shades brought me back to one of the first pieces I started working on, a photo of a Mahonia bush. My first thought was to make different colours of prefelt, cut the shapes out then felt together, but I think this could be achieved more effectively with a combination of fabrics and organza.

Have you thought about joining in with the Abstract Challenge? It doesn’t have to be figurative. Do you often make abstract pieces from fabric, fibres or felt? Do you have any good tips to share? We’d love to see your work if you’d like to share with us 🙂

What I am working on.

What I am working on.

Comments 9 comments

A while back I showed you some multi coloured batts I made from all my leftover bits.  I felted 2 of them with the intent of making some tablet and ereader covers. I haven’t made the covers yet but I have felted them. I only have a picture of one.

blue/green batt before felting
Blue green batt felted up.

I also made this nuno piece. I didn’t like the blue wool much and its been hanging around a while. It was wool dyed to exhaust a dye bath. so I put this nice piece of  to colour silk on top and nuno felted it. I think it will make a nice bag.

Before felting
After Felting
Close up of texture.

I will be going to a medieval fair later this summer. one thing they need is a way to hide their modern electronics but stay in costume. one traditional piece that they can ware is a belt pouch. I am working on making them. I sewed them with my machine but to make them look period correct I need to add stitching to cover that up the machine stitches and I want them to be strong and not stretch out of shape if people over fill them.

Group of belt pouches.
This is the back where you can see the slits for your belt and the stitching to hide the modern sewing machine stitches.
More Dryer Felt and Easter Eggs

More Dryer Felt and Easter Eggs

Comments 9 comments

As you know I wasn’t very happy with the dryer felt I did last week but I thought I would try some nunofelt. This went much better. I made this piece called snowy night.

Snowy Night

I used fine merino on a silk chiffon. It was inspired by the snow falling outside my window the other night. I had tried this before without being all that happy. I use plastic top and bottom as recommended but didn’t like it. I went back to using my sheer curtains. I did rub it on the back for about 5 min. There wasn’t a lot of wool on this one. I rolled it up around a damp towel an then wrapped another one around it , tied it up and tossed it in the dryer with no heat for 20 min. when I rook it out is was attached somewhat to the sheer. When I roll by hand this happens too. I carefully peeled it off . I though it was done really well and ready to full. For some reason I though I would roll it up the other way and give it more time in the dryer to be sure. I  opened the dryer to find everything had come undone and was in a pile. When I untangled everything I found the scarf was completely fulled and very close to dry. I need ironing but I havn’t done that yet.

Felt Easter Eggs

I made these Easter eggs the other night. I will be teaching an Easter egg class at Just knitting in Carleton Place, Ontario. If your close why not join in.

Our First Giveaway

Our First Giveaway

Comments 62 comments

Our First Give Away

We’ve decided to have a giveaway in celebration of our new Felting and Fibre Studio and also just for fun! To enter and win this fibre pack you need to leave a comment on this post for one entry. Competition will be for 1 week and the winner will be announced by random number draw.

The pack contains just over 100grms of Fibre

Some hand dyed and carded small batts

Romney Fibre

Merino Roving

Natural Merino Roving

Merino Silk Blend

Natural Silk Noil

Silk ribbon

                        This is a fun pack to use in your fibre arts.

Competion will end on  Sunday the 16th at 9.00pm Australian Time

Direct Dyeing

Direct Dyeing

Comments 21 comments

Direct dyeing is a method where the dye is applied directly to the fibre. This can be done with very small or fairly large amounts of fibre depending on what utensils are available to you, but it is particularly good for smaller amounts. One advantage is that the fibres don’t move around so there is less tangling or felting. Another advantage is that very small amounts of dye can be made up, reducing the risk of waste.

Dyed Silk Throwster’s waste

 I have written a step by step tutorial with lots of photos and a table to help work out very small amounts of dye/solution. I apologise to anyone more familiar with imperial measurements, the quantities used are so small that the tiniest measuring spoons are used and they are metric, so it was easier to stick to one measurement. And also US and UK fluid ounces differ, and even cups have metric, US and Canadian versions 🙂  If anyone needs a converter I find online conversion is excellent for everything.

Direct Dyeing Tutorial, please click for PDF