How an ENTWINEMENTS scarf is made-5
Today I will do three different processes to these poles to create the pleated scarves: discharge, over-dye and set the pleats. The previous steps 1, 2, 3 and 4 have been published here in the blog and are discussed at greater length in my book, SHIBORI: creating color and texture on silk.
DISCHARGE
We start today with 10 poles wrapped, all in Purple Passion. The first the poles are wet.
And the area around the burner is set up for discharge.
I have a 15L SS pot that I use and heat on the high btu burner. I have a yellow bucket with cold water to quench the discharge and one with a black top/seat to sit on. After the water comes to a boil, I add my discharge chemicals .
Then I place a pole on top of the pot and scoop out a cupful and pour it over the pole. I repeat until I get the discharge that I want. The discharge color here is yellow, and I want all of the visible silk to have some yellow. If I can't get the color I want I may need to add more chemicals. When I get the discharge color I want (and what I want has been determined in the design phase) I plunge the pole into the cold water to stop the discharging. With one pot of discharge solution, I can discharge all 10 poles. I do need to occasionally add more chemicals and of course it must be kept hot.
Then I wash them with Synthrapol to remove residue of discharge chemicals and smell. It would complicate my life to add dye if there are still chemicals in the silk that destroy the dyes. Easily solved with a good wash.
As always when you use Synthrapol, you must rinse, rinse, rinse until it no longer foams. Then all the discharged poles are ready for over-dyeing.
OVER-DYEING
To make the over-dyeing go quickly, I use stock solutions of each manufactured color which I have already made in these pint squirt top bottles. I also keep a gallon of water at a near boil so that I don't have to wait for the pot to boil!
I also have a burner for the over-dyes and a cradle to hold the pole.
I prepare a pot of dye by adding some stock to boiling water:
Then when it boils I use an ear syringe to dye part of the pole.
Here you can see two colors of overdye (gold and a blue red) and the discharge color (the yellow), I usually use 4-5 different colors on each pole. I prepare the pot of dye, then put some of that color on each of the poles, then I prepare the next over-dye color and apply that to each of the poles. In this case I will continue over-dyeing until all the discharge color appears to be covered ( it is never really all covered).
One of the most difficult things here is to remember what the original color is and what effect you want. None of the purple is visible, so you must have clear memory of the color to make your composition.
SETTING THE PLEATS
The setting of the texture is a 3 part process in itself and takes 45-50 minutes for each pole. So again I try to make the process more efficient by doing more than one at a time.
First the poles soak in an acid bath for 15-21 min. The pH of the acetic acid bath needs to be between 3.5-4.0 and we measure it with a pH meter, which we have calibrated in a buffer solution. Here the buffer is pH 7.0
I have an acid bath that I use for 3-4 months but the pH must stay in this range. The bath can hold 3 poles at a time.
The poles go from the acid bath to a steamer.
As you can see this is not a commercial steamer but one improvised from a large pot. It can also hold 3 poles at once. Each pole steams for 15-21 min. and then comes out and is wrapped up in towels to keep it hot while the last step is done.
It is rolled back and forth, with as much pressure as I can exert. This bends the silk at the top of the pleats and helps the pleats last. This rolling goes on for and many minutes as I can stand . It also helps to dry the silk. A lot of water is removed by the towels.
The poles must dry completely before they are removed from the poles. I set them in front of a box fan and they will be dry in the morning.
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