Play Silks!

       I generally consider myself a reasonably creative person. I am good at imagining up my own variations on an idea, but sometimes I need an 'idea seed' to work with. My idea seed for this project came from here. I spent this afternoon making play silks for Laura (and me) :). They took quite a long time, but it was worth it as they turned out really well.


     A week or two ago I ordered twelve 8" x 54" silk scarves from here (you could obviously choose whatever sizes you want). I also bought about 40 packages of powdered Kool-Aid, and loosely followed the dyeing directions from this blog. 

While I removed the tags from the scarves, Laura helped by throwing them on the floor...

... and then chewing on them.

To prep the scarves, I placed the raw silk in a pot of boiling water with some white vinegar.

While the silks were prepping, I got out the rest of the materials:
microwavable bowls, cling wrap, oodles of Kool-Aid, tongs, and more vinegar.

The first scarf: two cups of water, half a cup of vinegar, two packages of red
Kool-Aid and one orange. I tried sprinkling the orange powder directly onto the
silk that was sticking out of the water rather than just mixing it in, which worked
reasonably well in providing regions more orange than red.

I covered the bowl with cling wrap and microwaved for 3 minutes.

Kept baby entertained with Rice Krispies and sippy cup. 

I tried to mix up the patterns on them by wrapping elastic
around some, twisting some, rolling some, etc.

Once I was happy with the pattern and colour saturation,
I rinsed under cold water and then hung them to dry.

The first three I dyed hanging to dry. (I would only recommend this method if
you don't particularly care about the well-being of your chairs or floor.)

I fed baby lunch so she fell into a food coma to allow me
to finish since it was taking much longer than anticipated.

The dye is all absorbed when the water looks like this.
You may be able to get more than one scarf dyed
(depending on its size) per quantities specified above.

I debated about leaving this one like this since it looked
like a beautiful blue sky. I achieved this look by tying the
scarf in a loose knot. (I ended up dying the white part light
blue, but it still looks like a pretty sky.)

Be prepared for your hands and possibly tea towel to look like this.

The lot hanging to dry. Please excuse the diapers
and other random mess that is my laundry room. :)

The finished product all laid out. They still need a final wash and dry, and possibly an ironing. ;)

     So, after doing this, I can say that there really really is no exact science to Kool-Aid dyeing. You just have to play around with the method until you find what suits you. It was fun, but if you are planning on doing this with little kids, I would try starting with just six scarves or so, or else don't be a crazy perfectionist, because it did take me ALL afternoon to get them to turn out like this. 
     I am still planning on sewing loops on the ends of them so that they can also be attached to dowels to be used as those dance streamers. I'm sure Laura will enjoy playing with them now, but I'm hoping she will also enjoy them for years to come; they make great pretend-play items: necklaces, shawls, skirts, capes, leashes, flowers, fire, rainbows, or whatever else she imagines them to be!