Where we dye scarves and the kitchen smells like burnt silky koolaid plastic

I promised I would try and go through the 8 billion tutorials I have collected and pick a few to add to the Finished Projects list.  Which seems so tiny compared to the other list.  I also promised myself I would leave my house more often to interact with others. Which means I was able to accomplish both goals on one day thanks to Mama Gast and her darling little Lucy. 

Not a bad start, eh? 

We both share a love for natural toys, especially the beautiful play scarves you can find in pretty much any children's catalogue.  However, the price tag is a little too much for my budget and I am always ready to try something myself before I shell out any amount of cash.  So we got together this past week and decided to try it out for ourselves.

I ordered a couple random sized scarves through Dharma Trading.  There are a few different tutorials for dying the silk scarves, but I was surprised and curious to try one that uses kool aid.  We followed the tutorial exactly----wet our scarves, folded them or rubber banded them (to create different designs), placed them into gallon zip lock bags, sprinkled a kool-aid on them and kneaded the bag to work the color into the scarf and placed them into the microwave for 2 minutes.

Picture taken by Mama Gast

We quickly decided this isn't the best method after pulling out a slightly on fire scarf. 

Live and learn---right?

So, here is what we ended up doing if you want non-crispy results.

After getting your scarves wet and folding them into those adorable designs----put about a 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of water into the bag.  Make sure your microwave is on a lower setting (4 or 5 power level) and check it every 30 seconds.  Flip the bag if you need to (you may want to use tongs for this).

After microwaving, put bags to aside and let soak for 24 hours.  This will be difficult.  You will want to take them out immediately and see how they turned out.  I recommend distracting yourself as much as possible. 

Read a book
Plan your garden

Bake something wonderful

After 24 hours, rinse scarves under cold water and hang up to dry. 
Pat yourself on the back for saving quite a bit of cash and being so wonderfully creative.



A. James and Abby enjoying the scarves.

Maybe not so much Abby.