Silk Banner Success

Well after my first foray into painted silk banners was a bit of a disaster, I finally can say I have silk banner success.

I've had the second banner painted up, ready for steaming for nearly a year, but hadn't been game enough to steam it until I figured out what exactly I was meant to do. Then I saw MoG was selling a bunch of silk banner painting supplies, including a steaming chest, so I decided it was time to get back into this silk banner gig.

What I know now is that despite being called "steam fix dyes", the main thing is to heat the dye to a really high temperature (i.e. that of steam), but not let any moisture touch the dye at all. The dye does not need to be in contact with the steam in order to be fixed. I know I'm being pedantic, but I really wish they'd state that explicitly on the damn bottle of dye.

Anyway, on to the pics:

This is the steaming chest. The silk banner was laid out on brown paper and rolled very tightly around the rod, taped at the ends to seal, then the rod sits suspended in the chest. Water is poured into the chest beforehand and we had two little butane burners going underneath. Important note: position the burners so you can easily refill the cartridges when they run out without having to try and lift a really hot chest.

Here is the chest with the lid on. The lid originally didn't have a handle to lift it. It has since been Blayneyed.

The moment of truth, part 1 - the unrolling of the banner after 3 hours of steaming. Note the lack of tie-dye of effect.

The next stage is washing out the excess dye. MoG had some "silk wash" made from Lux in the box of stuff I got from him. I was a bit worried at this point as a LOT of dye came out in the washing. The picture above was the second wash. During the first wash the water went bright purple. I was very worried that my white bits would end up mauve.

However, the white remained white, as shown above. While a lot of excess dye came out, the dye was still quite firmly fixed on the banner where it should or shouldn't be.

Viola! One completed silk banner in action at May Crown. It fluttered beautifully in the breeze, however this made getting a clear photo a bit of a bugger, so a kind gentle gave us some assistance. I'm really happy with how it turned out. The colours are vibrant and the silk has remained soft and supple.

I'm now confident of doing many more banners and will be running some workshops locally after Flametree Ball to encourage people to have a go.