After an unsuccessful search for (affordable) lightweight silk at local fabric stores, we decided to just use a cotton sheet for play 'silks'. Dharma has a great selection & we may eventually purchase part of a bolt from there, but for now these will do fine! The sheet was 100% Egyptian cotton, queen size I think. We cut it into 36" squares - Tweeters helped to measure, mark & cut. She even got to push the sewing machine pedal while I rolled the seams (like I said, she loves to sew just like her sis!).
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| Ok, this should go at the end of the post, but it's too good to leave til the end! |
Then came the really fun part! Picking the grapes & dyeing the fabric!!
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| I thought the birds would have eaten them all - but I guess the sunflower seeds have been distracting them ;0) |
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| They are sooo sweet! We ate about as many as we saved for dyeing. |
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| Smashing them...then we covered them w/ water, brought it to a boil, and simmered it for 1 hour. While that was simmering we also simmered the cloth in 8 cups of water & 1/2 cup of salt (to fix the dye later). |
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| Then it was time to rinse the salt from the cloth & put it into the strained dye. Tweeters & Jam sampled some of the grape juice before we put the cloth in - they wanted to save it for Passover!! |
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| We worked it all through the fabric & let it soak for about an hour - although some let it soak over night. |
I'll try to update with a picture of the dried cloth soon!
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| Update - not finished cloth yet, but we did marigolds before they all froze! |
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| A nice yellow, but Flash thinks it looks like a big pee stain ;0) |
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