Dyeing Silk

I dyed silk yesterday for a new project I'm working on.  We are doing a "challenge" in TAODA of dolls based on a piece of music.  I won't say what mine is until it's completed, but it involves a tree.  I've been doing trees lately.  I'm actually working on another piece with a tree - a commission - similar to "Pixie Capers", which also has a tree in it.  More on that later....


Anyway, the tree for the challenge piece will have bark made of silk tussah.  I wanted gray tones for the bark.  And I also wanted to dye some silk gauze and habotai at the same time.

Silk gauze is on the upper left, habotai on the right, and tussah roving is in the center at the bottom. 

I wanted the silk gauze to be darker, so I put it in the dye bath first.

Then I poured the dye into a plastic tub and added the habotai.

After removing the habotai I added the tussah roving.  I poured more dye over some areas so that there would be lighter and darker shades of gray within the roving.

It was a sunny day so I took everything outside to dry.  There is my dog Sabrina in the background.

Here is Sabrina in "her" chair, keeping an eye on things.  You can see from the picture of the drying silk that practically everything in my yard is dead.  Everything except the pansies.  Thank goodness for pansies. :)

And now, the lovely gray silk:

Next step, silk fusion.