In regular intervals I meet with a group of my dear friends, either in a coffeehouse or in one of the homes to sit, eat, talk and be crafty. Our little circle is aptly called “Coffee & Crafts”, as we work on usually individual projects. Today, however, we were invited to Sunny’s house to help her dye silks in rainbow colors as end-of-the-year gifts for her 20 preschoolers. She runs a lovely, peaceful Waldorf-inspired preschool out of her home and this is where we met.
Before setting to work, though, we made sure we felt nourished enough to handle the task…
We used simple acid dyes for the silks, in which case all you have to do to prepare the fabric is wet it.
The dye gets mixed up in buckets with water (no measuring here, either) and off you go!
We had blue, red and yellow dye and a rinse bucket for each color. For a rainbow silk you fold your silk in half and dye it yellow.Then you rinse it, unfold it and dip one (still white) end and half of the (already yellow) part into red (makes red and orange). Rinse and dip the other (white) end and half of the (already yellow) end into the blue dye (makes green and blue). Rinse and dip the very end of the (already red) part into blue to make purple. Rinse everything one more time, let dry and iron. That’s it!
I leave with you with impressions of the dye party:
