When dyeing silk fabrics, several different techniques can be used. Everyone has the skills for creating of a unique silk scarf. I tried to dye silk with plants this time. You can read more about the dyeing technique in the post about natural colours.
In the winter, I dyed silk with rusty chains, and the pot was purple because I used the water where I had boiled beetroots in. This in itself was neither a curse nor a blessing, but unfortunately I did not like the resulting scarves very much.
Now I decided to put one scarf in the pot again, this time I put maple leaves and coffee grounds between the fabric. Luckily, now I was quite satisfied with the result. Maple leaves and coffee grounds did their dye job beautifully.
Silk scarf dyed with beetroot, maple leaves, coffee grounds and metal
I had also dyed another silk fabric evenly golden yellow with onion skins in the winter and was now hoping to add some sort of pattern on it. I used lupine leaves and wrapped the fabric around various rusty iron pieces. The result was quite interesting, but I had still been hoping for more. Unfortunately, the lupine leaves did not leave their shapes on the fabric this time, the leaves simply made the fabric darker – but that made the result more mystical instead.
Silk scarf dyed with onion skins, lupine leaves and metal
The last silk fabric was completely natural and without any previous treatment, I used rose leaves and black tea grounds for dyeing it. The result was much more delicate compared to the other dyed silk fabrics.
Additionally, I dyed this scarf with indigo – you can read more on that topic in the post about how to dye with indigo.