Pebeo gold gutta coming off in the wash.

Well I've just iron fixed one of my scarves and then washed it, wrapped it in a towel and ironed dry, only to find that some of the gold Pebeo gutta has come out and fixed itself to other parts of the scarf- FRUSTRATING! The Pebeo website says to wait 48 hours after iron fixing before washing and ironing. So I'll try that on the next one. I wish they would put this on the gutta tube. But not to complain it gives me the opportunity to get cracking again and paint another one!

Cutting silk to make scarves to paint on

U-tube videos didn't seem to help me so I needed to find a way to stop the silk from moving, stretching and distorting as I tried to cut it.  I found that by turning over the dining room table protector it gave me a surface that stopped the silk from moving. I drew a right angled oblong on the fuzzy side of the protector which gave me the length and width I needed for my scarves. By placing the silk on this I managed to cut the silk with good results and fairly straight!  I now buy an 11 metre roll of Ponge5 from silkcraft.co.uk . With silk you will not get completely straight sides but this does help. They sides can be straightened up when hemming the edges. - the next post!

Starting to paint on silk.

I have come to silk painting only recently but I can honestly say this is the most satisfying and compelling craft I have ever tried.
I had bought some mixed media Pebeo paints which I started to use on tiles to make coasters. I then realised Pebeo also did Setasilk paints and I thought I would try those as well!
I started by buying just one ready made hand hemmed silk scarf off of Amazon. I  looked at some u-tube videos about painting silk and made my first silk scarf of large round flowers, which I sold at the WI Christmas Bazaar, along with another 6 scarves!

Having spent the previous year learning how to use my sewing machine for creative and free hand embroidery I felt confident enough to try making my own rolled hems and bought a few metres of Ponge5 from silkcraft.co.uk.  Creating the hems was much harder than I had anticipated! But cutting the silk was even harder. So I thought that going forward I would note down some of the things I have found out that have made creating my own rolled hemmed scarves for painting much easier and much cheaper.