Lovely lacy christmas trees...

Hello Everyone! I posted a tutorial on this lacy Christmas tree over on my guild blog. Go have a peek if it interest you.
Hope you are all having a great week!

RainbowFingers Giveaway and Dye Experiments

Before I say anything else, I want to congratulate Cat's Wire for winning the giveaway today. I will be sending out your goodies as soon as I get your address :)

So this week has been a busy one for expermentation but I think I finally have a handle on how to get nice dark colors on habotai. I learned a lot of things about dyeing this week and that is a good thing to me. I want to know everything I can learn about what I do. I dont like running into brick walls, standing there scratching my head and thinking, "Now what do I do?" Never a good feeling.


So after lots of research (because I always have to do LOTS OF research before I do something) I did some experiments with little bits of silk.


I did a lot with my MX dyes and vinegar because I knew that using soda ash and vinegar gives distinctly different results with some colors. Then after finishing with those, I did some Dupont dye experiments.


Now everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, I read said I HAD to steam these dyes for something like 3 hours. I wondered how on earth I could accomplish this. Then I decided to throw caution to the wind and try the microwave instead.


Now the microwave seems to work well with the procion. I do get dye run off when I rinse but very little, the colors are set well. I even ran them though a hot wash after with no change in the results. The dupont, which was what I was worried about has NO dye run off. It was completely stable after a very short stay in the microwave.


I have yet to try doing a 2 1/2 yard piece of silk in there so I guess that will be my next experiment, but the results so far are VERY pleasing! I only have the three colors in dupont but I will probably get a few more. Truthfully just using the vinegar with the Procion MX will satisfy more of my needs. Silk doesnt like a lot of the deep blues and greens with Procion MX and soda ash and will not dye the black no matter what. Well now I can get great black...and brown and the beautiful black brown mix there in the middle was what I was shooting for. Perfect!

Something warm this way comes...

One of the things I have been putting a lot of work into lately is different scarves. I have been making all of this beautiful fabric and wanted to do something with it. Since I love scarves so much and I know other people do to, I decided to make several kinds. I know I talked about this a few times back when I was first thinking about it but I dont think I have shown you the results. I thought I would show you a few pics of some of the finished items. I have just started listing these in the cymberrain shop on Artfire

I started out making these long and sinky scarves and I think I showed you a photo of a few of these:


Then I went on to making some larger scarves with the silk velvet and these I lined in silk charmeuse. These scarves are so wonderfully plush and the charmeuse is softer than butter. Just lovely!


I have also been making some yummi warm double thick flannel scarves. I just LOVE this one!


Besides these I have made a rainbow of cotton scarves that are still sitting here waiting to be photographed. Hopefully soon but with everything I have piled up it might take awhile!


I am chipping away at the piles as fast as I can. I have a mountain of silk ribbons to list in my shop, more floss and some lovely silk habotai pieces and larger silk gauze pieces for the nuno felters out there. I am also starting to experiment with some silk dyes and might show you some pics of my experiments. I want to be able to get some nice deep blacks and super bright brights on the silk habotai and gauze and that will never happen with procion mx so I must expand my horizons.



Lastly I just wanted to send you all a reminder: Dont forget I am having a giveaway on my Artfire Blog and you are almost out of time to sign up. Go there now if you dont want to miss out!
Have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving!

Recovery

Well I did it, I pushed to hard and down I went. I got the worst case of the flu that I have had since Talence. Lots of coughing, sneezing, sniffling, tea drinking, sleepless night cause I can't breathe, and then...just when I thought I was starting to get better...another bug, Stomach flu and all the fun involved with that. So ten days later, I am here, still a bit slow and sore, and definitely ten pounds lighter! I plan on continuing to take lots of time to rest for awhile but hope to start getting something accomplished again. I have been working a bit when I could but most days I simply had no energy and could care less what was happening.
It seems this year more people have been down sick than I remember in a long time. Not just sick, but sick for days on end sick. I hope everyone out there is keeping well. Get your flu shot. Take your vitamins. Whatever you can do to stay healthy. You don't want what I've had. Trust me!

RainbowFingers Giveaway

Hello all, hope you are keeping warm! As you all know I have been a busy bee here in my studio, sewing, dyeing and all kinds of busywork. I have finally completed my first group of Silk Velvet Square Packs and in celebration I am having a giveaway over on my RainbowFingers shop blog Head on over there if you are interested in winning a rainbow silk velvet square pack and be sure to check out all the new items there, including all my velvet square packs.


I am getting closer to finishing the big update to that shop. I finally got my business cards and new packaging for my items. I really like how they turned out. I still have a large backlog of ribbons to add to the shop and some silk gauze but once thats finished I can start concentrating on my sewing again. I have been working on lots of scarves and such but right now they are all buried under stacks of pretty hand dyes. It has been a bit of an elephant, these tasks I have been tackling these last few weeks, I am slowly conquering them though! When I am finished I will have things streamlined and easier to go forward.

I rearranged the studio because no matter how well you think it out at the beginning you find after you work there awhile that things would just work better a little differently. D also set up some different lights to make things brighter in here. The dye studio was just too dark. I also set up a photography corner. I can already tell even though things are still a mess that it is going to be easier to get my work done. We all know that the easier it is to get our work done means the more time there is for SEWING!

So I know I have been absent a lot these days but soon things should be a lot calmer (who am I kidding with Christmas heading our way) I have been promising myself time to stitch for quite awhile now and keep pushing it away, I am going to put my foot down soon and just insist. I love my dyes. They are beautiful and they inspire me but my first love is my sewing and no matter how much I love my dyes I will not allow them to push everything else out of my life! So keep your eye out and you will see some stitching content returning soon, really!

Dont forget to check out my giveaway!