Dye for play silks?

Kool-Aid, Wiltons, Easter Egg Dye, Food Coloring all will work with silk. Make sure when using these dyes that you use vinegar as well.

Hugs,
tammy

Non scientific instructions:

Dump silk into warm water to wet, if you have syntropol add some (it'll help the silk to get wet)

Mix paste w/some vinegar & water until disolved (some as in anywhere from a tbsp on up, same w/the water). You want it to dissolve, it's kind of a pain (that I've found) if you nuke it it'll melt some.

Using a pan OR you can use baggies

Pan: pour water into pan add a couple of "glugs" vinegar add dye and silks (scrunching as you want), and heat. Don't boil but let it simmer until the silk is the color you want.

Baggies: To dye add more water/vinegar, dump silks & dye into baggies. Seal and toss into microwave and nuke. WATCH it as you nuke it, you'll nuke for a min or two, stopping when the bag expands so it doesn't "pop"...

I'm sure in the stickies above there's some better instructions...it's basically the same as koolaid, but you add more vinegar.

Hugs,
tammy

Thanks!!! See, I didn't know that about hte syntrapol...I thought it was helpful to get the silks wet...as for wool, it washes the junk out pretty well. When I dye silks, I don't use it, 'cause I'm lazy, I dunk 'em into water to get them wet "enough" and then dye, I'm too impatient to wait.

Hugs,
tammy

Quote:
Its useful for prewashing/scouring with most fabrics. Though I generally do not do this with most silks I do(depends on dye procedure), I always pre-scour cottons b/c the generally have sizing and optical brighteners in them from the manufacturing process.

Kathy