Serendipity and Silk Dyes

I've been busy again, this time playing with gorgeous silk dyes and scarves. I love silk, it takes these French dyes beautifully and they look even brighter after they've been steam-fixed. I did a mix of habotai and chiffon scarves - both are lovely - and used three different colourways. I usually select three colours for each batch and mix them to create shades and hues that work well together. Some of the scarves have been shibori-dyed and some space-dyed - both techniques are unpredictable, hence the serendipity in the title. The most exciting bit is unwrapping them after they've been steamed and seeing the final result - always beautiful, but not always as expected!

Here's a photo showing some of them dancing in the sunshine yesterday.

Spring Greens

The colour for spring 2012 is GREEN...in all its wonderful shades and hues, from pale spearmint to olive, lime and emerald. The shops are filling up with lovely fresh green clothes and accessories, so I'm joining the green party and showing some of the lovely green creations in my Folksy shop at the moment. Here are just a few of them....visit the shop at www.folksy.com/shops/ciesse to see more.

Amberley shoulder bag with pleat detail

Flora knitted handbag with fabric flowers

Carolina padded handbag in green and orange

Grassmere large shoulder bag

Hand-felted cuff bracelet

Mobile phone or gadget padded case

Green knitted furry scarf

Upcycled felted wool scarf kindle case

Vintage Hermes Scarf

It's been a mixed weekend so far...some good bits, some not so good.
I received some long-awaited funding from Arts-in-Action to promote and support my felt-making workshops (good) and on one of my textile treasure hunts, I picked up a vintage Hermes silk scarf (very good), which will probably make its way onto my Etsy shop at some point. It's from 1993, so not quite old enough to sell there yet, but it will meet the 20-years-old rule next year, so I'll sit on it until then.
As for the 'not so good' - well, I haven't been in the mood to make much this weekend and I haven't sold anything at all - Folksy is very quiet and so is Etsy. I also picked up a vintage designer handbag that, on closer inspection, is obviously a fake...buyer beware...but at least I didn't pay much for it!

Vintage Hermes scarf  'Alfred Dedreux, Peintre du Cheval' by Zoe Pauwels (1993)