This silk started out plain white and I dyed it using Dharma Trading Procion MX dye in teal blue. I learned a lot and kinda freaked out that I wasn’t safe enough although I have stopped freaking out and I think I was and I will just make doubly sure to clean the whole kitchen tomorrow. And have now ordered a slew of safety items like goggles, a respirator, heavy duty gloves, etc. And from now on I plan to do it out on the porch. I never use anything that got used for dying for food again (once it becomes used for dye, it will always be used for dye, or thrown out).
I was thinking about getting a burner for the porch to use to boil the dyebath. But I’ve read some posts on dying in the microwave, so now I’m wondering if I should do that (get a cheap one to put on the porch) since it’s also suppose to be much faster. Because my big concern is what to do with all the water and rinsing which is going to have to take place in the kitchen either way and I don’t really want to be dragging big buckets of water across the rug. I think that might be okay to try because from everything I’ve read, the dye is not so bad once it’s in liquid form. It’s bad in powder and then it’s bad to breathe or eat because it gets on your mucus membranes. So certainly, mixing the dye with water will take place outside from now on.
Now that I’ve done it once, I’ll post step by step pictures next time.
so why don’t you just buy blue silk to begin with and let someone else take the risk of becoming a smurf???
I don’t know. I’ll ponder that. No, but seriously, mostly because this way I can customize the color. Once I understand it better, I can vary the intensity, mix colors, etc. Don’t worry, I plan on being very safe from now on.