Silk dying experiments

I have been experimenting with dying silk scarf blanks in the microwave.

This large square scarf started the colour of the tee at the top of the picture, which was part of the bulk lot dyeds with Dylon machine dye. The pink wasn't a very flatteringshade for me, so I wanted to add some warmth. I added yellow, red-orange, red and a little bit of brown, and I do like the new overall sunset colour, though the smattering bits of brown have not worked as well as I had hoped.

This large rectangular scarf was also the same pink colour originally. Here I mixed up a burgundy shade and also added some yellow highlights which show up as orange. I am not sure this has changed colour quite enough for my liking, so this might get some more overdying to warm it up properly.

This scarf started out as a classic white blank long scarf, but not as large as the previous one. I scrunched this up on a plastic sheet on the draining board and dripped the dye on with a pipette. The dye then made sort of flower patterns as it went through the wet silk. I like the effect, but it is quite a strong colour combination, and I am not sure if this will appeal to the intended gift recipient. The colours are too cool for me.... so not sure what will happen with this one.

Another plain white silk blank, this time I tried to keep the silk a lot wetter. I've used three shade of turquoise, teal and blue and got them to blend together more than in the one before. This is very pretty up close, but the delicate effects don't show much a little further away!

This is a piece of silk, so will need hemming somehow (may need to buy some silk thread). I've used the same colours as in the scarf above, but diluted them first with water to give a paler shade. This is even softer, so not sure if the effect is too subtle and therefore boring.

I am definitely hooked now, and will be trying to take what I have learned and be able to make scarves that come out as I want them to in future!