Last year on a beautiful sunny day I had a coffee at the Turks Head on St Agnes, Isles of Scilly looking out over incredibly the beautiful aquamarines and blues of the sea. I had my watercolours and camera with me to record the colours and the scene. Fast forward nearly a year to my studio and the inspiration for a silk scarf.
I used Kniazef French dyes that give beautiful vibrant colours on silk.
Recently I read a post by Husnah Rafeth in the Silk Painters International (SPIN) group on Facebook about steaming silk using a pressure cooker with the weights.
She has made a youtube video about this, you can see it here
I lost the weights to my 1970s vintage pressure cooker and they are no longer made so I could only use it as a steamer and I have done this for years. Silk dyes must be steamed for up to 3 hours to make them permanent. The silk must be rolled in paper or cotton so that no part of the silk touches any other part during the steaming process. A foil cover prevents drips falling on the package and spoiling the design before the colour becomes permanent. All time consuming.
I put a request on Streetlife and within hours was offered some vintage weights.
So the pressure cooker was ready to rock and roll and I was itching to make a new scarf. The other difference was that Husnah folds the silk then wraps it in muslin. I tried this and it worked well all steamed in 25 min. with no unwanted transfer of dyes. I am not sure whether this would be the case with coloured or metallic guttas. I'll do some tests first before putting them on a scarf.
This one is a longer scarf and slightly different colours.
