Okay, so by now it is March. I decided that my first project is going to be a green scarf for St. Patrick’s day. (Besides, green is the color that looks best on me.)
The first step was to wash the silk and iron it. Next I stretched the silk on some PVC pipe that my husband had helped me saw into sections. I covered the breakfast table with a drop cloth. I got out all of those cool supplies I had gotten from Dharma Trading Company.
The dyes are really expensive so I had only gotten primary colors plus a green, chamois and black. One thing I learned early on was that the color charts are not very accurate. I didn’t like the green color I had gotten so my first experience painting on silk also involved mixing colors. This led to a second lesson: dyes on silk have a minds of their own. Even though the blue and yellow were mixed thoroughly, sometimes there would be a slight edge of blue where I painted the green. It was actually quite pretty, just not what I intended.
Since the scarf was to be a St. Paddy’s Day scarf, I wanted some subtle shamrock shapes on the scarf. I knew I had to work quickly so the dye wouldn’t dry and leave sharp edges but one of the clovers that wasn’t quite as distinct as I wanted. Ms. Perfectionist decided to try to fix it. Lesson number three: The silk is always right; don’t try to fix it. Of course I did try to fix it and it was a disaster.
See that yucky blob on the leaf of the clover? Luckily the blob was near the bottom of the scarf so I cut it off, re-hemmed both pieces and ended up with a scarf and a hanky! (Some sage advice I have read on the silk-painting blogs is: if you make a mistake, try to incorporate it into the design. Well, I didn’t incorporate it but I did end up with two very practical pieces!)
I ended up giving this scarf to my mom for her birthday so I guess I’ll have to make myself another green one.
Rainbows in Waterfalls 
What do you think?