There are better tutorials online but here’s how u can learn from my fuckups
this craft is a dye transfer. It takes advantage of the poor colourfastness of silk and the fact that dye bonds readily to organic material in the presence of heat and a setting acid.
You will need pure silk dyed with a pattern. Must be 100% silk; check the label. Silk neckties are the best in terms of price and diversity, but you can also use patterned silk shirts and scarves. The fabric will be scrap when you’ve finished with it, so don’t take usable pieces from a wardrobe, buy ugly things from a thrift store.
GETTING THE STUFF
When sourcing your ugly ties, blues and reds give the most striking results. Any texture of the fabric will transfer too. You’ll also need pale eggs. I used duck eggs, since I have ducks, and I blew out the shells so they won’t rot. (Later I will thread ribbon through the holes in the shell and hang the eggs on a tree and pretend that that’s a Thing.) you will also need string and acetic acid I. E. Cheap white vinegar.
DO THE THING
Cut the ties up, unpicking the lining and seams so you get nice big squares.You can get about 4 eggs from each tie. Wrap egg in tie. To make the silk lie flat on the egg you can get it wet first. Make sure the right side of the fabric (former front-facing part of the tie) touches the egg for a sharper transfer. Wrap it tightly and then wrap it with string and hair ties and shit to get the silk really close and tight around the egg. Wrap the bundle in throwaway fabric or rags (I used the interfacing from the inside of the ties)
Boil the bundled eggs in a pot in a mixture of water and acetic acid, mixed to a Ratio. I just poured in a few mLs of white vinegar, cos that’s all I had in the house, and I figured using balsamic vinegar would get weird fast. But I’ve done acid dying before, and I was confident that if it smells strongly enough of vinegar then it generally works (HI I’M A SCIENTIST)
(I strongly recommend looking up Actual Tutorials online.)
Boil for at least 20 minutes - the longer the boil the stronger the colors- then turn off and leave the pot until the bundles are cool. Unwrap them to reveal Majesty or possibly Fuckups.
Some online sources say you can reuse the scraps for another round of dying if you wish. The scraps will look a little bedraggled afterwards, but you could still use them for patchwork or crafts if you’re into that.
SOME WAYS I FUCKED UP
The paisley tie eggs didn’t come out well, because I didn’t wrap the silk tightly enough. On one of them you can CLEARLY see the dye only transferred where I had tied the string, making a weird pattern. Obviously, if you like the marbled look you can do this on purpose. By the time I did the yellow tie, I was better at wrapping the eggs.
I wish I had done the purple striped tie, but I balked because it looked too new and pretty, and it still had an original price tag on it saying £15. Now I just have regrets going both ways. So I would suggest only buying ties that you can’t imagine real people wearing, and then you won’t feel like a wasteful sinner for cutting them up.
Paisley ties definitely mimic the look of pysanky eggs, so I recommend trying them.
Waaay back in the day I wrote about acid-dying yarn here:
https://elodieunderglass.com/2013/03/12/the-rainbow-in-your-hands-protocols-for-hand-painting-yarn/
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