Finally got all my dye chips made.  Someone tell me not to try to do this in a hurry with 20/2 silk next time, 150 wraps per chip!  A good motivation to move to 10/2 tencel, so I may.

Here's the substrate chip.  This was a good exercise, as it illustrated to me the variation in color of the silk yarn, as well as some anomalies, such as the dark line in the middle.  I was thinking this (dark streaks) was showing in my dye chips due to some error on my part.  But it is part of the undyed yarn.

 

Comments

dancingfish (not verified)

Since Karren had asked us to post those, and I've been forgetting to take their photo (must be the boring aspect).

Mary Rios (not verified)

It's truly - a work of art!

 

Anne Vincent

These look great.  If you wrap while watching Le Tour de France you can wrap in time to their pedaling.....

Karren K. Brito

That dark streak in the substrate chip is upsetting.  Do thoes dark streaks occur in all the silk or it that a one time occurance?

Some of the Boring Beige and the palest sun yellow chips look uneven in the photos, what do you think when you see them in person?  Could we see a close up of the  palest yellow chip?

Karren K. Brito

That dark streak in the substrate chip is upsetting.  Do those dark streaks occur in all the silk or it that a one time occurance?

Some of the Boring Beige and the palest sun yellow chips look uneven in the photos, what do you think when you see them in person?  Could we see a close up of the  palest yellow chip?

dancingfish (not verified)

I'm seeing color variations in the silk (light to dark) all through it, and there are some foreign fibers that get twisted in with the silk infrequently.  This is silk coming from India.  I think the dark streak in the substrate chip is a foreign fiber, but I also noticed some dark streaks in the dyed chips.  It is possible they are from using black cotton for ties, since Donna mentioned she'd seen bleed out from her black ties.  I haven't noticed them specifically around the tied areas, but I think some of this doesn't show up obviously until you make a chip.  I've switched to undyed fiber for ties and we'll see if that makes a difference.  I'm also not sure if the light areas are just showing the difference in the substrate variation, or if this is a problem with my leveling.  One of the beige chips is from my batch where my ties were too tight, and there was definitely some light patches around the tie areas.  I'm trying to be consistent about agitation, but maybe I'm not doing a good enough job there.  I will post a shot of the light yellow chip.

Linda

 

dancingfish (not verified)

Here's a closeup of the light yellow chip.

And here's a better closeup of the substrate chip.

Would like to know what you all think.  I'm waffling between thinking it's a process error and thinking it's a substrate problem.  I am going to see how my tencel/bamboo chips turn out, though I know I have a problem with at least one of the skeins where I didn't agitate properly, since it's light under the ties.

Linda

Karren K. Brito

Could be both but for sure there are problems with the substrate.  You need to scour some skeins of this silk.  Same process that Mary used for cotton, reduce the soda ash to half what you use for cotton and don't boil, just hold it around 85-90°C for 15-30 min.  And then make a chip and let us see it.

Sorry we didn't catch this problem right in the begining but this is the first time I've seen the chips. 

If the scour cleans up the silk, the dyeing Boring Beige with scoured silk will tell us if there are any other problems.

dancingfish (not verified)

Karren, I know you were trying to get us to post our chips as we went, so this is my fault (and lesson learned).  I didn't feel that I could estimate the Munsell notations for the dyed chips until I got my poster (which I received on Monday) and so I focused on getting the dyeing done, which I needed to try to do over 4th of July weekend.  I can see too that it would have helped to do the substrate chip FIRST, and check issues there, before plunging in.

Linda

dancingfish (not verified)

here it is side by side with the unscoured:

It looks like it lightened, just slightly.  I would describe the color as still slightly mottled.  Not sure if it got rid of the dark streaks, or if there just wasn't a streak in this section of the yarn.  I'm guessing my dye results may still not look perfectly level with this yarn even if scoured.

Linda

 

Karren K. Brito

The color is very strange for cultivated silk , also referred to as mulberry or bombyx silk.  It is the whitest of all the fibers.  Tussah has a tannin color from very pale to tan.  When I compare the color to the white card it looks like a pale tan, what do you think?

Tussah silk can be hard to dye unless it has been bleached.  What do you know about the silk?

 

dancingfish (not verified)

Disclaimer:  I'm a silk fiber newbie.  

I bought the silk from Michael White, who participates on Weavolution, and sells silk that he imports from India.  Here is his webpage on the silk:

http://www.handweaver.us/silk_from_india3.htm

It's only described as 20/2 spun silk, in natural.  I guess the "natural" is a clue that it is probably a tussah silk?

I agree that it is a very pale tan color.  I did underexpose the photos slightly, as otherwise it's difficult to see the mottling of the color.  But even so, it's quite different from the white of the card.  

If it's tussah, that would explain the color, and perhaps even the random odd "bits" mixed in.

Linda

Karren K. Brito

You could ask Michael, though he may not know more than you do.

Tussah comes from India, it is always spun (you can't reel the tussah cocoons) and is some shade of tan so the probablity is high that it is tussah.  Tussah can require bleaching , not just scouring.

Don't get me wrong, I love and use tussah silk, but dyeing it can be tricky business.

Why don't you focus on tencel for now, do you have enough on hand to work with it?  Have you done the boring beige on tencel?

dancingfish (not verified)

I do have enough, I think.  I did boring beige today, and did lots of plunging, but still having some unevenness.  I'm almost certain now that the problem is that my ties are still too tight.  I will try again tomorrow.  I may also increase my liquor volume as Mary did.

Linda