Blue Twig Studio - Jan Product Review and Project Step-Outs

This month's Blue Twig Studio product was a Treenway Silks package: Creative Silk Pack, in Winter Night Sky colors. It contains (8-10) silk hankies, (5) silk cocoons, (5-6) silk carrier rods, and some degummed throwsters silk. For those that are unfamiliar with these fibers: Silk hankies are 10" squares of silk fibers held together with a "selvegde.." The Bombyx cocoons are the home of the Bombyx silk worm and are spun of a continuous thread one mile long. They can be cut, painted, and sewn. The carrier rods are a by-product of reeling the silk from the cocoon. Some of the filaments get wound around the machinery. This silk is then slit and removed. The rods are 5-5 1/2" long when whole and unscrunched.  The degummed throwsters silk comes from a "throwster" who takes several silk filaments, assembles and twists (throws) the silk to create a reeled silk yarn that is substantial enough for weaving or knitting. These fibers, cocoons, and rods can be dyed in many colors. In the Winter Night Sky pack, the various silk fibers are dyed in shades of blue to purple.

Treenway Silks Creative Silk Pack in Winter Night Sky colors.
Contains silk hankies, cocoons, carrier rods, and degummed throwsters silk fibers.

Project:  This product gave me some thought on the best way to use it. I love working with silk fibers. However, you cannot felt silk without adding some wool fibers to trap the silk. Wool has little barbs that hold them together, but silk does not. I took a class last year with Noriko Endo (a Japanese fiber artist) on using silk fibers. She made beautiful silk scarves and wall hangings. I decided to do a silk scarf. I cheated by using a white silk scarf as a base, instead of just fibers, as Noriko Endo had us do in class (as there were not enough fibers in the package for me to make a scarf).

8mm Habotai silk scarf - 8" wide x 54" long.

First, I painted the scarf using a variety of paints: Pebeo Setasilk and Setacolor shimmers in greens, blues, and purples, and silver; and Liquitex Acrylic Inks in copper and bronze.

Pebeo Setasilk and Setacolor Shimmer
fabric paints in purples, blues, greens, and silver.

Liquitex Acrylic Ink in bronze and copper.

One end of the scarf after the painting has been completed and heat-set.

A couple other products that I used were Angelina fibers to add glitz and glimmer to the silk fibers, netting to trap the silk and Angelina fibers, and water soluble stabilizer to hold the layers together until I stitched them.

Angelina fibers.in several shades of blue, bronze and copper.

Netting to trap the silk fibers between it and the silk scarf.

Water Soluble Stabilizer

One very necessary item that is needed when working with silk fibers is hand lotion. The silk fibers tend to stick to fingers unless lotion is applied frequently. So keep a jar or bottle handy while working with the silk fibers.

Hand lotion - very necessary for working with silk fibers.

 

When pulling silk fibers from a silk hankie, stretch the fibers out to create a thin layer.

Stretching the silk fibers of a hankie apart to create a thin layer.

Pulling off a piece of a silk hankie to work with.

Since I used a silk scarf for the base, I applied thin layers of the silk hankies to create texture and interest. (If a silk scarf base is not used, then a base created from multiple thin layers of the silk hankies applied in opposing directions on top of a layer of heavy water soluble stabilizer is necessary.) Besides the thin layers of the silk hankies, I added thin strips of the carrier rods, strings of the degummed throwsters silk, a whole carrier rod, Angelina fibers, and some silk flowers that I had in my silk fiber stash to the scarf.

A small portion of the scarf showing the thin layers from the silk hankies, curly
 strings from the degummed throwsters silk, thin strips of the carrier rods, silk 
flowers, and Angelina fibers laid on top of the painted silk scarf base.

After adding all the fibers, I added a layer of netting to trap the fibers and a layer of light-weight water soluble stabilizer to hold it all together. I sewed the layers together on my sewing machine using metallic threads and silk threads for further embellishment. I stitched approximately 8-10 curved lines lengthwise down the scarf. I also stitched across the short ends. (If creating a base of silk fibers, rather than using a silk scarf, then netting is not needed, as it is necessary to machine stitch with small circles no larger than 1/4" in diameter to hold the silk fibers together.)

Once I was done with the machine stitching, I further embellished the scarf with embroidery using silk floss. Ruth Chandler's book, Modern Hand Stitching, is a good resource for stitches.  I added buttonhole, fly, lazy daisy, and seed stitches. I also added beading to the silk flowers, lazy daisy flowers, and the silk carrier rods. Finally I cut a couple of the cocoons in half lengthwise, added beads to them and hand-stitched them to the scarf.

Hand-painted silk scarf embellished with silk hankies, silk carrier rods,
silk cocoons, degummed throwsters silk, Angelina fibers, embroidery and beading.

Detail of completed silk scarf.

Product Review:  The Treenway Silk Creative Silk Pack was fun. The silk fibers can be used in many wonderful ways. Winter Night Sky is just one of many colors the dyed fibers come in. Just remember to keep hand lotion available when handling the silk fibers to keep them from clinging to your fingers and getting everywhere!


Keep creating!!
Lynnita

Indigo and Shibori Dyeing

A few friends, Rita, Mary and Roberta and myself, got together at Roberta's house for a day of playing. We made up a batch of indigo dye from a kit ordered from Dharma Trading. We dyed mostly cotton fabrics to use in quilting, but also dyed some silk and velvet ribbons, some lace and some eyelet fabric. Indigo will dye both animal and plant-based fibers, therefore, most natural fabrics can be indigo-dyed.

Indigo is easy to do, as it doesn't need to be boiled during the dyeing or heat-set to be permanent. The fabric is left in the vat only for a short time. If it dries too light, it is put back in the dye to darken. You do have to be careful not to introduce oxygen into the vat, so the indigo isn't oxidized. Once it is oxidized, the dye is exhausted and will no longer bind to the fibers.

We manipulated the fabric with different methods - knotting, folding, clamping, shibori using a plastic tube, marbles and rubber bands, and whatever other ways we could think of to manipulate the fabric. Many books are available with instructions for shibori dyeing and/or tie-dyeing. There are also many resources online.

Tools, like rubber bands, thread, needles, clamps, clothespins to manipulate the fabric, soy wax and tools (potato masher, wood chops, tjangs, paint brushes) for stamping the soy wax on the fabric, a book on Shibori methods, as well as, anything else we thought we might need or use today. 

Skimming off the bloom from the vat of indigo dye.
Ready for dyeing fabric.

Lynnita is stitching a circular pattern
to ready the fabric for dyeing.

Fabric is initially a neon green when first
pulled from the indigo dye.

As the fabric is exposed to air, the dye oxidizes
and turns the beautiful blue indigo.

                                              

                                            Rinsing the fabric under water. This fabric was dyed using a shibori
                                  technique (wrapping the fabric on the pole, then scrunching it together
                                 as much as possible. Fabric is held in place with rubber bands. 

Excess dye is rinsed away in cold water.

Fabric is wrapped around marbles and held in place
with rubber bands. This will create circular donuts
of the original color of the fabric. In this piece, the
marbles are placed randomly.

Roberta is pulling fabric from the dye vat and squeezing out excess dye. Mary
and Lynnita are unknotting, unclamping, unwrapping fabric to see the final results.

Fabric is set up on drying stand  until we are ready to wash with Synthrapol and dry.

Mary showing the her piece of shibori-dyed fabric.

Lynnita showing her piece of shibori-dyed
fabric. All 3 pieces were wrapped on the same
 tube and dyed together. Although similar, there
are definite differences in how they turned out. 

Mary showing off her knotted piece.
Beautiful circles resulted.

Lynnita's knotted piece. More beautiful circles. 

Marbles were placed in 2 rows, alternating with each other in this tone-
on-tone white fabric. The underlying pattern can be still be seen after dyeing.
The rubber bands  left a white donut where the marbles were placed.  

Rita took all the photos for our play date of indigo dyeing. We had a tremendous fun and created several pieces of indigo-dyed fabrics with various patterns. Many other pieces created are not shown. We also dyed silk ribbons in 4 mm and 7 mm widths, as well as 1/2" wide velvet ribbon, doilies, pearl cotton, and yards of lace, and eyelet fabric.  We had to quit, as we exhausted the indigo dye in our vat. When the dye is no longer a green color (is indigo-colored), there is no longer any dye available to bind with the fabric.

Next time, we plan to do more stitching to create patterns, as well as using soy wax to create patterns to resist the dye. We also want to dye wool and over-dye fabrics.

Thank you for joining us today. I hope this encourages you to try some indigo dyeing.

Week 3 of 365 Days of Art Challenge

DragonArt Evolution
by J. NeonDragon Peffer

This is week 3 of the 365 Days of Art Challenge. I didn't get much sketching done this week, as my hands were really bothering me. I have just one small sketch.  I love dragons and my nephew gave me a book on drawing dragons, DragonArt Evolution How to Draw Everything Dragon by J. "NeonDragon" Peffer for Christmas.  It looks like a great book and I'm looking forward to doing all the exercises in it. The author breaks down the dragon into various body sections and then finally puts them all together. She includes a variety of dragon types. This week I tried the 4 different types of eyes she demonstrated. I only used pencil. I need more work on the shading. Adding pen will be next and finally drawing them in full color using a variety of techniques, such as colored pencils, pastels, watercolor . . .whatever the dragon tells me.

The four types of eyes (orb, reptile, round pupil, and jewel) demonstrated in the book.

The other creative thing I did this week was dye silk scarves with a few friends. We used Colorhue Dyes and some Dye_Na-Flow Fabric Paints by Jacquard to dye the silks. Roberta and I first saw the Colorhue dyes at a demonstration at the Long Beach International Quilt Show a couple of years ago. It was quick and easy and not very messy. So we bought a package of dyes. They do not create very intense colors, but the colors are still beautiful and dyeing fabric is just so much fun. Following are the scarves I dyed. 

(Note:everything is dyed with Colorhue dyes, except where noted. Photos show half the scarf.)

11"x 60" Flat Crepe silk scarf.  Dyed using turquoise, blue, and lime green. Spritzed purple Dye-Na-Flow over punchinello to create a dotted pattern. The fabric paint bled everywhere and I ended up with mottled purple, instead of dots of purple. I plan to add some foiling later.   

11" x 60" Flat Crepe silk scarf. Painted a lime green stripe diagonally across the center, followed by turquoise, blue, eggplant, rose, and finally orange on either side of the green. Then I added black creating diagonal pleats going different directions across the scarf. I want to add some beaded fringe to the ends of this scarf. 

11"x 60"  Flat Crepe silk scarf. Lime green and green background. The flowers at the ends and in the center of the scarf  are created with a mix of turquoise, blue, eggplant,  and black.  Added some rose, goldenrod, and turquoise for highlights.  Used accordion folding the scarf to create the stripes. I plan to add some beads to the flowers and maybe some beaded fringe to the ends of the scarf.  (There isn't a line between the large flower and the stripes - it's a fold in the fabric that needs to be pressed out.)

11" x 60" Flat Crepe silk scarf. Goldenrod and orange background. Turquoise, blue and eggplant mixture for the spirals at both ends of the scarf. Added turquoise and goldenrod, creating the green center. Used a toothbrush to splatter emerald, blue, purple, and yellow Dye-Na-Flow fabric paint over the entire scarf.  I just love the excitement added with the splattering.  I think this scarf is my favorite of the ones I dyed today.

8" x 54" Habotai silk scarf. This was my clean-up scarf. Whenever there was excess dye left on the table, I used this scarf to wipe it up so as not to waste any of the dye. The more and more that I cleaned, the prettier and prettier the scarf became. Hard to believe this "waste" scarf has turned out so beautiful!! That's one of the reasons I like the Colorhue dyes. They adhere to the fibers so quickly, that the colors do not become muddy as colors are mixed on the scarf.