These first three piles are charmeuse, habatoi, and crepe de chine, but not necessarily in that order. I think some of these are going to be difficult to work with, being that they're very slippery and soft. This is no surprise to those who have worked with silk before, but up to this point, I have spoken cotton pretty exclusively.
This fourth picture is of raw silk. This required the most adjustments. The fabric was difficult to wet, it's very nappy, and it needs alot more dye than a similar length of the other fabrics. I got some of the weirdest colors in the raw silk.
This last picture isn't silk, it's the cotton broadcloth that I normally use. I cut off a half yard piece from the bolt and used it as a mop up cloth and put it into the slop bucket. Since I was only batching the silk for an hour, I knew there would be enough dye power left to get some good color and design. I purposely left out most of the reds since in the past when I have done this and included the reds the end result was an overpowering ugly red. By the time I added all the dyes to the slop bucket it was very dark brown. I dumped in some more soda ash and let it sit. Even when I rinsed it out it was still dark brown and I thought maybe I had overdone it. But here is the result, it's yummy.
