Ice dyed scarves

I finally did the photography work, such as it is, for the ice-dyed silk scarves that have been hanging over my ironing board for weeks...….finally couldn't stand moving them one more time to use the iron so bit the bullet and took photos so I could list them in my etsy shop.

Here's one batch - all are 8" x 70" - there are a couple I almost kept but I already put aside a few for myself, in reality how many would I actually wear.

Here's another batch of the same size silk scarves other than the blue/grey one second from the top on the left - that's an infinity scarf. There are other infinity scarves already in my shop.

And here are the rayon/silk devore scarves. These are a little bigger being approximately 13" x 70". They're a lovely weight, so light and airy.....and the burnout devore designs are wonderful, they can be seen better in some close up shots in my etsy shop.  All these scarves are now available for sale HERE.

No weaving going on here with a puppy but hoping to get the loom warped in a few days...…...behind a closed door to keep paws out of all those threads that will be hanging until I get it wound on the back beam. I have gotten some time to work on a few gift projects but really much of life is consumed with a big puppy who is learning more day by day.

Grown up tie-dye

I love ice-dyeing but had only done scarves and shawls up until recently where I ventured out into socks, fabric (for future sewing/quilting projects) and now a couple of tops for myself.....I think.

I love the way this bronze/brown top turned out and plan on wearing it this coming week. There was no rhyme or reason to how I scrunched it up on the screen for ice-dyeing. Even Sam was taken by how lovely it turned out......

….but he agreed I must have lost my mind when I dyed this one. These are not my colors....at all.  It's pretty but just not me. Will have to give thought as to whether I keep it or try to find someone else it would suit better.....or just wear it around the house and not care that it's too baby blue for my tastes.

In case anyone is interested I bought these tops from Dharma Trading Co.  Great place to find blanks for dyeing - it's where I've always gotten my scarves and shawls to dye. They also have tons of dyes, lots of surface design supplies plus much more. And they have super quick shipping.....for me it's 1-2 days since they're just south of me in California.

I'm in one of those places (in my pee brain) wondering why I bother blogging. I started this blog in 2008 as a way to help promote my handwovens, roving I used to sell and other creations. I don't think it did much promoting as many who follow me are other weavers, spinners and sewers/quilters. I still follow many blogs and enjoy reading them but there are also many that don't post to their blogs anymore, just to Instagram or Facebook. Will give thought to the future but not today.....too much else to do...…..

This & that..........

 I've been doing more ice-dyeing...….it's stacking up waiting for me to do the photography work. I also bought some socks from Dharma to ice-dye. Here are two pair above the ice-dyed rayon/silk devore scarves. They take the dye so well - I love them.  Today I have a batch of 8 pair of socks ice-dyeing along with cotton fabric underneath them to be dyed for whatever projects may come along, mostly probably quilting projects.

 It's that time of year again to make gift bags.  I leave them out on my table to work on here and there when I have a bit of spare time.  I generally take my own bags when grocery shopping but occasionally I open the back of the car and there aren't any in there......so I save the bags to recycle. I wonder if Trader Joe's ever thought this would happen to their bags when they printed 'reusable recyclable' on them.

 Here's one of the finished bags, this is the larger size.  Yes, they aren't beautiful holiday gift bags but I like them. I do still have to hit up the Dollar Store every once in a while when I run out of my homemade bags.

Here are the cows this morning, from left to right - Gwinevere, Stan, Ollie and Moo Latte.  They are not actually staring at me, they're staring at the guy on the roof trying to pull the chimney stack out. Today the new gas fireplace install is happening although we're in a holding pattern waiting for the gas company to arrive to shut off the gas as these guys aren't allowed to touch the main shut off and we don't have a secondary one outside.  Back to the cows. It looks like the piece of property behind us has sold and there will be houses built - it's going to be a sad day when I no longer get to see and talk to the cow gang...…….and I instead hear construction work going on and have houses behind us.

Infinity scarves......

I just got the infinity scarves listed in my Etsy shop. I really love these circular scarves - they can be worn so many ways. I think I've only got 3 more to dye so will have to make sure I dye one in my colors to keep.....although there is one of these I might change my mind about selling.  

Twelve more scarves to photograph, more waiting to be dyed, and I've got some devore silk shawls to dye too...…..and some socks which are just for fun to give away.'

These infinity scarves can be found in my ETSY shop.

Ice dyed silk scarves........

Worked on some dreaded photography work yesterday - here are 6 of the recent ice-dyed silks scarves. Have other photos to edit of some infinity silk scarves.  Then more in the queue to dye and photograph. These scarves are now in my ETSY shop.

Ice dyeing in progress......

 I hadn't planned on it but decided to ice dye 6 more scarves this morning - they're now 'marinating' or the official term is 'batching' until tomorrow morning.  I can already see some of the scarf above under the melting ice - I think it's going to be a beauty...….

 This one is interesting looking, not sure if that's good or bad.....

…..this one the scarf is toward the top of the picture under the melting ice, it's going to be another beauty, I think.  Then on the bottom part of the picture there's some cotton fabric, that was white on white design, that the ice and dye are dripping over. My quilter neighbor gave me 4 pieces of fabric to try under the ice dyeing.  This one looks beautiful. Two of the others look pretty good but the 4th one is up in the air - it's a pretty big piece of fabric to be bunched up plus it may be a poly blend - it looks strange where the dye is hitting it - who knows, it may wash out to white tomorrow.

I have more scarves to dye, some shawls and even a couple tops, summer tops for me that I never got around to dyeing in the spring so I could wear them this summer...…..

Ice dyeing.....

 I finally got out the dyes to do some ice dyeing so I could show a neighbor how it's done. We each dyed 2 scarves and a pair of sox.  I love the way my sox came out although they are a bit lighter now that they're dry. I can't wait to try some more sox.....also have more scarves, shawls and a few tops in the queue to dye...….maybe next week......

 I love to watch the dyes migrate as the ice melts - it's always makes such interesting patterns on the ice.

So much more fun to see on full size cubes rather than crushed ice.

Bits and bobs.........

 I just listed some more ice dyed silk scarves in my etsy shop. I've got some silk shawls 'marinating' now.....will rinse them out tomorrow and eventually get them photographed when I have time. Then I'm done with scarf/shawl dyeing for the year. Out of the recent dyeing I have set aside 3 scarves for myself - can't wait for cooler weather to start wearing them as it's still summer here.

 I went to a quilt show over on the coast last weekend. It was a small show but very nice. This was my favorite quilt in the show. It's hard to tell in the photo but all those circles are yo-yo's. I love yo-yo's. I can remember my grandmother showing me how to make them when I was very young. I've wanted to do a project using them one day.......perhaps that day/year won't be terribly far in the future.

This was another quilt I loved. It won best of show at the  Coos County Fair and had a second place ribbon from the State Fair. I can see why, it's a wonderful quilt.

More ice-dyed scarves

 I have more ice dyed scarves up for sale in my etsy shop..........well, except for the one above as I decided I needed to keep this one for myself. I might even embellish it a bit with beads on each end.....will be giving it thought.

Here are the new ice dyed scarves that made it to my etsy shop. I love them all but isn't the lavender/coral one sweet. It's tempting to keep that one for myself also but I listed it and will give it more thought.   I've got some more that I washed out this morning, they need ironing and photographing before they're ready to sell.

Feeling like I'm spinning my wheels these days with administrivia, both in my business life and personal life....unfortunately I can't do much about the personal administrivia, it's just a part of life. I'm working on some changes to alleviate some of the time sucking business administrivia though, have one exit strategy worked out, still thinking on what to do about the other stuff. My goal is to free up more time to create but not necessarily create for sale. I have to-do lists that are miles long but I never free up time to work on those projects. I talk about change each year yet it doesn't seem to materialize but this time there will be changes come winter.....some will be immediate, some just scaling back with long term change in mind. I'm excited just thinking about it. More details to come later on what my plans are. I should start prioritizing that very long to-do list as I'll want to do everything at once.

Speaking of adminstrivia - I'm off to photograph silk scarves..........

Fun with ice-dyeing

I'm still here in case anyone wondered....although no one probably gave it a second thought. I just haven't had much to write about....spent some time on the coast, wove a towel warp off the loom over there, towels now awaiting hemming, did some ice dyeing.......and then the rest of what I've been up to is all the mundane chores associated with life that have nothing to do with weaving, dyeing, spinning, sewing, etc. etc. etc.

Here are the latest ice-dyed scarves now available in my etsy shop.  I had fallen behind in making ice. I generally use a combination of crescent shaped ice from our ice maker and rectangular ice from many ice cube trays in the big freezer just for ice dyeing.  So, I had to resort to buying bagged ice - I had a choice of one big block or chips of ice so I chose the chips as I didn't want to have to figure out how to chop up a huge block of ice. In the end I don't think I got the same dye variations using the chips as opposed to the cubes. The scarves are still very pretty but....not the same.......so, I must make sure I take the time to deal with making ice on a daily basis as it's takes a lot of ice......and I've got more scarves and shawls to dye.

I've been overwhelmed with life lately - does it ever slow down? Will I ever feel like I've caught up, at least for a day? I'm beginning to think not. We looked at the calendar last night and September and October are swamped with things on the calendar including house guests........and I have some very crucial personal/house related things I need to fit in-between.  I'm thinking getting to the loom is going to be a challenge let alone working on gifts........glad I got a head start on some of those gifts this summer.

This and that.........

 Yesterday I had enough ice to ice-dye 4 silk & rayon devore shawls.  I love how they turned out. They're now up for sale in my etsy shop and can be found in the Hand-dyed Silk Shawl section of the shop.

I finished plying the handspun I was spinning at the fair. It's a bit thinner than fingering weight. I love how it turned out. Not sure what it will grow up to be yet - I haven't counted how many yards are here yet.

Fire season is getting scarier here.  New fires are sprouting up each and every day, luckily we have enough resources to jump on them quickly. I heard a copter fly low over the house 2 nights ago at 10pm but discounted it being a fire as they stop flying at dark - I figured it was a medical copter. Found out the next morning it was for a fire a few miles up the road from us - luckily it was snuffed out quickly. As I type there's a fast moving fire south of us - not dangerous for us at all unless it really blew up, like some of those fires in CA. The road is closed between here and there as the fire is on both sides of it - this is very close to a fire from a few weeks ago where 3 homes and a few outbuildings were lost. There are level 3 evacuations which means get out, don't stop to gather anything, just get out........the road where my relatives used to live is in that evacuation zone, they're living in MT now. These fires have to be human caused as there's been no lightening here all summer. I feel like I'm holding my breath all the time.........it's tough to live under constant stress of possible forest fires........I don't sleep well, I think about fire all the time. The fall rains can't come soon enough for me but we've still got a month or more to go..........a month is a long time during fire season.........

Ice-dyed warp

Here's the finished ice-dyed warp woven up in an undulating twill. I like it but don't know as if I'll ice dye any more warps..........the watercolor effect I was going for wasn't quite what I expected, not as much color variation.

More ice dyeing.....

Just a bit more ice-dyeing - love the hot pink in this.......

.....love the subtle lavenders and blues in this one......

.......and this one with the lavenders and grey blues has really caught my eye......I've listed it in my shop but am still giving thought to keeping it..........if it sells soon then it wasn't meant to be but if it sticks around it's definitely mine.......or may end up being mine anyhow........

So I decided to try out ice-dyeing on a warp (for you non-weavers, a warp is the lengthwise threads that go on a loom for weaving). Usually I paint (dye with brushes) warps for weaving but thought I'd see what happens with ice-dyeing. It's not what I expected. I guess I thought it might be more mottled like ice-dyeing fabric. There are some color differences but not much. This warp is just for one scarf as it was an experiment. The fiber is a blend of cotton and rayon. So, I'll put it on the loom soon and weave it off and see how I like the effect - will it have a watercolor effect? or just look almost a solid shade of green? How it turns out will determine if I ice dye a warp again.

I have more silk/rayon shawls to dye - some ice-dyed, some with ombre effects but I need to set those aside until sometime next week as I've got other things that need attention first.

I'm coming down the homestretch on the gingko shawl. I took it to work on at my spinning group yesterday - big mistake as I'm down to the lace rows which include a gingko leaf. I ended up backing out two rows, last night here at home I reknit those and knit one more row so not much to show for my day.

More silk scarves........

More ice-dyed silk scarves available in my shop

Golf wiffle balls and ice dyeing

Yesterday I tried out something new on two of the silk scarves to be ice dyed. I confiscated 2 packages of golf wiffle balls from the golfer in the house as he doesn't use them for practice.  I then wrapped the scarf over the balls and rubber banded them in place.

Here they are piled with ice and fiber reactive dye.

Here's what they looked like this morning before I patiently removed all the rubber bands and wiffle balls before rinsing the scarves. 

And here are those two scarves.  Kind of a neat effect although looks a little tie dye to me. Will I do this again? Not sure. I know I keep seeing more and more tie dye but not sure that's what I want to dye..........although I do think these are really interesting looking.

The 8 scarves dyed yesterday will be listed in my etsy shop as soon as I have time to edit the photos. Sitting up the ice at the moment are 3 silk shawls and a wound warp of a cotton/rayon blend. Not sure how any of these will turn out - all are experiments that will be rinsed out sometime tomorrow.

Ice dyed scarves ready for sale

Ice dyed scarves for sale in my etsy shop. More to come after being rinsed out and photographed in the next few days. There are a couple that have caught my eye.....will be thinking on if I want to really sell them or not........

Ice dyeing

 Yesterday morning I washed out the first batch of ice-dyed silk scarves - love how they turned out.......except for the yellow one on the end. It's just a bit too yellow and people are afraid of yellow.  That one will get over-dyed sometime this week.

I set up 8 more scarves with ice and dye yesterday morning, look at the colors in this one. I started with turquoise and terra cotta - look at how the dyes break and create even more colors. I'll be heading outside shortly to wash out yesterday's scarves - will be a fun surprise to see what I got. I've got 8 more scarves to set up to dye today.........two of them I'm using a fun technique...........photo later. Hopefully will get a warp wound today to try this dye technique out on a warp - will either be very interesting or a big mottled mess which is why the warp will only be for one scarf for this experiment.

Ice dyeing

 It's that time of year again - time to play with ice dyeing. This morning I set up the tables and dye stuffs and painted (with dyes) a knitted blank to use for a warp (hope it turns out) and set up ice dyeing for 8 silk scarves. It's so warm the ice is melting pretty fast.

You can see the silk scarf peaking through in this photo - it's looking like it will be a beautiful scarf.  Always such a surprise to see what I've got the next day when I rinse the scarves out and hang them to dry. I've got more scarves and some shawls to dye, haven't decided if the shawls will be ice dyed or if I'll paint the dyes on like I usually do.  I'm also going to wind a warp and see how that turns out ice dyed - it could turn out incredible or a mottled mess. Will get to that in the next week.

More scarves and shawls....

More hand-dyed scarves and shawls finally up for sale in my etsy shop. It certainly is a time sucker taking photos, editing them, tagging with inventory numbers and listing in my etsy shop.....but all a part of the job. I did put aside 2 ice dyed scarves for some surface design/stenciling - I deliberately dyed those two very pale colors. I'm drawn to so many of the colors but only set aside one for myself out of the batch of 20 - I didn't take a picture of that one, maybe I'll get to it. There are at least 5 scarves I'd love to keep but being realistic I wouldn't wear them all so I settled for one. The shawls are lovely and there's one I have my eye on but need to think on if I'll really wear it - hopefully that one doesn't sell before I make up my mind.........I won't tell which one as having done that in the past someone I know then bought it immediately.

More ice-dyed scarves

 

Hand-dyed Devore Rayon and Silk Shawls

Ice-Dyed Silk Scarves

So far I've gotten 12 of the ice dyed silk scarves photographed......more to come soon.......and all those silk devore shawls too.......too much to get done, too few hours in the day. These are all available in my etsy shop now.  There are a couple I'm really tempted to keep for myself........giving it thought........