Wednesday, April 27, 2005

silk road

scarf3 Originally uploaded by raynag.

In between packing supplies for my workshop at the Springfield (MA) art museum (still not finished) and everything else, I screened some scarves the other day. Tonight, I am finally steaming them in my big spaghetti pot. I need to get a bunch of them done to take to QSDS with me, so a few at a time should get them all done by the end of May. If you have steamed silk, you know the process. If you haven't - just know it's one of my favorite things because I love the smell of the wet newspaper. First I lay the scarf out on layers of the New York Times. It's my favorite steaming newspaper - not the snob factor, but because it is larger than other newspapers so I can use less of it. The other picture shows you the scarves all nicely rolled up and ready to cook. I can never figure out why, even though the scarves are the same size, every package comes out a different size. One of life's little wonders. While they are steaming, I will go do a little more packing. I will be back later.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

I love seeing how you work! I've never steamed silk. How do you wrap them? Do they have to be totally surrounded by the newspaper and no piece of silk can touch itself?

Does this work with any silk paints? I have some Jacquard silk paints I've only used once. I was told to wash them in a special chemical, but I wasn't happy with how much they faded so I've never done it again.
Thanks,
Lisa

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