Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Painting on Silk

Last time I said I hadn't painted on silk before doing those scarves. Well, that wasn't completely true. I had forgotten about it (it was sooo long ago!), but I took a class in painting on silk from Yvonne Porcella when I still lived in Illinois. I don't remember much about the actual painting part, but I looked in her book Colors Changing Hue and she uses Setacolor and Jacquard paints. The nice thing about paints instead of dyes on silk is that you don't have to do a lengthy steaming process, you can just heat set with an iron for a minute or so. That, plus the paints are not as toxic.

I do remember that to make this vest (from Yvonne's pattern), strips were torn from the silk, re-arranged, and sewn and flipped onto a lightweight flannel inner layer. The hand-painted silk ribbon (painted at the same time as the fabric) was hand sewn on top. The whole thing is lined with a piece of silk brought back from China by a former roommate, Piera.


No comments:

Post a Comment