Dyeing Silk in South Dakota

     Several dye workshops are on the schedule for later this fall and winter.  On a recent visit to South Dakota to visit Sue, we spent a morning dyeing several pieces of silk, mostly just to see what would happen.  Results are great -- now we're ready to try some more tricks.  This is great practice for the September workshop in Watertown, SD  (dyeing sock flats) and another coming in November for both flats and skeins. 

Sue found a great little microwave (at a thrift store) that works fine and did a good job on fibers -- and no worries about contamination with food.  This one is easy to haul around and it'll go with us to Watertown in a few weeks.

Once we knew the microwave worked, we mixed up a dye bath and got to work.  We only made about a pint of yellow solution, but it was enough to immerse this piece of silk in.  We set the color and were very pleased that none of it ran when we rinsed the piece -- the fiber absorbed every bit.

We hung it out to dry, and went on to other pieces.  The scarves looked really neat hanging from her deck railing -- all the colors were fun to see, and much brighter than they look in these photos.  We each dyed a silk t-shirt the same shade of pale blue, and gave ourselves a challenge -- think of other things to do with it to add more color, surface design or pattern.  Next time we get together we'll show them off.