Rainbow Colors

Silk cocoons are where silk thread comes from. Believe it or not, about one mile of silk thread comes from one of these little cocoons. There are many videos that show how this is done, since I am never sure about the whole "cookie" warning thing, I will leave you to explore that on your own.

I am going to use them to make tassels for journals and didn't want to go through a giant hassle to get colors that would "match" the fabric covers for the journals so the first challenge was to use what I had around in the way of dye stuffs. I had some red wine, tea bags, walnut dye that was already made up, and for this purpose tansy dye is no big deal to whip up in a flash. I say "for this purpose" as these will never be wet or washed, so while the picture does explain a bit about pre-mordants and adjuncts not all of this would be applicable to dyeing fabric. While I did enlarge the image, it will probably be helpful to click on it in order to read the labels.

I gave them a quick soak in a weak alum solution I had already, I did warm it up a bit and let them sit for a half hour or so. Then I soaked all but the walnut for about a half hour in the dye bath and then gave some of them a very quick dip in my rusted water jar and set them to dry. Walnut is so dark already that dipping it in rusted water seemed redundant. I found it interesting that the black tea turned black when exposed to the iron in the water. It is the reaction of the tannins in the tea that caused this.

The color in the top picture is more accurate, but I do love playing with the filters on the phone!

The journals will eventually end up in Pottery Place Plus, they are mini versions of the binder type art journals I have done in the past, give me a week or so to get them in the shop.