How Scarves are Made

These breath-taking works of art will look fabulous with your favorite outfit, or make a thoughtful gift for someone special. Each one is individually hand-painted...no two are alike. Contact the artist for details.

HAND DYEING SILK SCARVES

Dyeing:
I purchase White 100% silk scarves from a distributor. These scarves are then stretched onto a wooden frame fastened with elastic and silk pins.

The silk is dyed using Jacquard Silk Dyes. The colors desired are mixed from a basic palette of colors available from the manufacturer. Small plastic containers with lids are used to store the mixed dyes. To apply the dyes I use foam edging brushes and fine pointed Chinese and domestic painting brushes.

Many of these scarves are abstract designs. I have a wonderful time
playing with colors and experimenting with the special effects possible with additives such as sprinkled salt and drops of water or alcohol. It is challenging to find new color combinations, and new ways to achieve interest in the design.

Drawing the Designs:
When a scarf has a contained design, such as a floral or fish, the design must be drawn on the silk with something that will contain the dye from spreading. Gutta (which is similar to thin rubber cement) and metallic guttas have been used on some scarves, and water based resists on others. Since I tend to be very spontaneous I prefer to draw designs directly on the silk with the resist and not use a prepared drawing.
Since I have been painting for nearly 30 years in various media my drawing skills have come in very handy in my silk work.

Setting the dyes:
After the scarf has been dyed and allowed to thoroughly dry. The dyes must then be set into the silk fibers. This requires an involved process of wrapping the scarves in lengths of muslin cloth, rolling them into a long cylinder then coiling that into a “snake” which is then overwrapped with another smaller cloth. The bundle is then placed into a stainless steel basket with holes all around and covered loosely with foil. The whole basket is then placed onto a steamer rack in a large crab steamer (reserved for this purpose) and must be steamed on the stove for two hours.

Preparing the silks for sale:
The last part of the process involves washing any excess dyes out of the silks, pressing them and tagging them for sale. Since all of my designs are unique to each scarf I can’t do two that are the same. I can sometimes use a drawn motif more than one time, but each time there are variations on the theme resulting in a one-of-a-kind scarf.