Here's what happened. I had a square of silk which I had dyed dark brown with the idea of experimenting with resists. The silk did not react as I expected it would, so I thought I should up the ante. In the previous I had used a 50% solution of bleach. This time I went up to about 80%.
I folded the silk and clamped it between two jar lids, shibori style.
Then I submerged it in the bleachy solution. I was initially pleased, because I could see that the exposed fabric was finally losing its dark color. On second thought, however, I wondered what was going on to cause the clamped fabric to foam. Look carefully: That was a glassy surface before I dunked the bleach in. Now it looks like it's boiling!
Oh, well. I remove the fabric and rinse it in plain tapwater. The color is gorgeous!
Unfortunately, when I opened it up, I discovered that the bleach solution had damn near dissolved the silk It came apart in my hands as I was spreading it out to see the results!
Note to self: When working with silk, leave the bleach at home.
Looks like you stumbled onto how to do a burnout.
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking that! The fabric they sell you to do burn-outs with must be part silk, part synthetic!
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