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I have been wanting to dye play silks for some time–my kids are always stealing my scarves (instant super-heroes, princesses, wizards, etc.) but it has seemed somewhat daunting. Then I finally made an order (found our blank silk scarves here, and I think the ones I bought are 30x 30). The blanks sat around for a little while, and then on a whim, because it seemed rather spring-like, I got them out and decided to do our little project.
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My kids are still quite young, and I have noticed that they are quite satisfied with simple art projects that don’t require lots of different steps or involved techniques. So I just soaked a few of the white silk scarves in a pot with one part white vinegar, and one-part hot water. I left them to sit for about 30 minutes, and then I wrung them out, protected our table with plastic (I just used garbage bags), and then folded the wrung-out silk scarves up so that they took up an area of about 1 foot squared.
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Then I gave each kid a squirt-bottle of liquid kool-aid. I only bought the liquid bottles because that’s what I could find at the grocery store in Fredericton. But they worked wonderfully! The kids just squirted the scarves randomly. Because the fabric was folded, it gave a nice tie-dye/shibori effect, although there was no tying involved. Then I carefully moved them outside, hung them up to dry, and voila! The results are beautiful, and the kids have been wearing the scarves constantly.
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Lee suggested that I use purple carrots, to make a natural dye, which I think is a great idea. We’ll try that next.
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