Dyeing

Properties

There are a few things you should know about the dye properties: 

  • colors will blend together – they won’t have clean lines – part of the beauty of these scarves is the ways the dyes blend (see examples below)

  • as colors are put together, sometimes colors that weren’t originally added begin to appear (see examples below – the one on the left had only blues and greens and some fushcia/purple is clearly appearing and on the right the scarf was a green and clearly some blue has appeared)

  • even “solid” colors will have some variation within the shade (see examples below)

  • on the 8mm China Silk scarves, if shimmer is added, it will create a “one-sided design” since the shimmer does not go all the way through (see examples below – front on the left, back on the right)

  • sometimes there are spots of intense color (see examples below)

  • the silk/wool blend has a texture, which results in slightly muted tones (see examples below)

  • the velvet has the texture on one side (left) and the uncut silk on the back (right) – they take dye slightly differently; the rayon results in rich, vibrant colors while the uncut silk side results in a muted variation of the same shades (see examples below)

Methods & Techniques

The scarves are dye painted using a couple different methods: Steam and Cold Cured.

  • The Steam method creates a lovely textured design and creates rich, vibrant colors. Because of the steam – the dye is not easily controlled, but creates some lovely patterns (see examples below).
  • Cold Cured is a slower method that is more precise with the pattern, but the colors are not as vibrant and tend to shift on occasion (see examples below).
  • Also I’ve included pictures of what I call the “Over-dyeing” technique. It’s where a previously dyed scarf is given a second layer of dye – it creates some beautiful and intense designs.

Steam Method

 

 

Cold Cured Method

 

 

Over-Dyeing Technique