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.

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...…..

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.

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.

It's been a grand day

It's been a grand day even though it's been raining pitchforks and shovels as my friend JoAnn would say. After getting orders boxed up and to the post office, yes people are still shopping for gifts, I edited many photos of a total of 8 scarves so they could be listed in my etsy shop.

An ice-dyed, stenciled dragonfly scarf is one of the new scarves listed.......

.....and an ice dyed, starfish and sand dollar scarf........other scarves listed but not pictured here are hand-dyed, stenciled and handwoven/discharge dyed.

Oh yes, I did go out wearing these leggings and no, I'm not 20 years old. Of course the only place I went was to the post office wearing a knee length coat over them. They're kind of fun for wearing around the house but a little out there for me.

And this was what I've been looking at all afternoon while knitting and listening to an audio book - perfect activity for a chilly rainy day. I'm really thinking I need to do this more often, usually I'm so driven.........it's time to relax a bit.......

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........

Dyeing.........

I decided to do a little dyeing. here's where I've got some ice dyeing going - there are silk scarves (first soaked in soda ash) hidden under those piles of ice, then fiber reactive dye powder sprinkled over top the ice, then they sit there overnight to batch. I bought some frames at the Salvation Army, took the glass out and had Sam staple some leftover screen from another project in them.

 I love the designs created with the dye as the ice melts

 Look at these squiggly designs

 

 Here are the 4 scarves rinsed out this morning hanging to dry - they take no time to rinse and dry

 Here's a close up - I find the designs created with the ice dyeing fascinating

 And here they are dried and ironed

And here are the silk/rayon devore shawls I dyed yesterday - these took forever to rinse the leftover/excess dye out of.

 This little lizard came to watch me today - good thing he was up on the fence rail out of Bailey's range who loves to chase the lizards - never caught one but it's a great activity.

 And this dragonfly kept lighting on my drying rack and let me get really close

Here's a beauty head shot. This one had a buddy that looked to be blue and grey but it would never stop so I could get a picture of it.

I've got some more scarves sitting under the ice and dye - the great reveal tomorrow after they're washed out. After that I've got 12 more scarves to ice dye but alas I've only got 4 frames at the moment so it will take a few days to finish up.

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

I finally got the fringe twisted on these 3 scarves recently woven - they have a hand-dyed silk warp and tencel wefts. The center one is listed in my etsy shop for sale - the other two will eventually make it in the shop, if anyone has an interest in one of them please contact me......takes me a while to get the photography work done to get them listed in the shop.

This felting landscape kit is available in my other etsy shop.  I grabbed a kit before I went to my spinning group yesterday, grabbed my blending board and started making rolags using all eight colorways. I've got 5 other colorways of felting landscape kits available for sale, bet they would be fun to make rolags out of on the blending board too.

 Here are a few of the rolags........I've got a total of one pound ready to spin, can't wait to see what the resulting handspun yarn looks like.

 It started out as a nice walk on the inlet beach looking for seashells and seaglass until that danged log showed up........

 .......Yikies - it moved - better back up fast.......

 .....whoa, that thing is alive......

 

.....better watch it carefully and definitely not turn my back on it........such are the perils in the life of a beach dog......