Silky Sunday

Here I am with the promised missing chapter . . . finally!  You might remember I had to skip ahead because I couldn’t find where I stashed the silk cocoons and rods.  I found the rods, but only one color of cocoons.  Hmmm.  I thought I ordered more, but perhaps not.  (They say the mind is the first to go!)  No matter, I got some more.  You want to see what I did?

The cocoons need to be soaked for a couple of hours so you can pull them apart.  I was able to get three layers on most of them.  They are drying out in the picture above.

While waiting for the cocoons to dry, I tackled one of the silk rods.  I separated layers by flexing and manipulating a rod until I could see multiple layers.  I found it interesting to see that the inner layers did not get very much color from the dying process.

By gathering one edge of a layer, I made these little rosettes.  There are some nice color variations here, I think. 

I kept one of the outer layers in its original form and stitched it down over some bunched fabric with beads.  A little free-form interest there!

Then I stacked cocoon “flowers” and stitched them down with beads as well.  This method has many variations and one could have an abundant garden just with cocoons!

And here is the full piece.  I’m sure you remember the infamous burning from a couple of weeks ago.  I think the silk flowers improved it at least a little!

And guess what?  This is the LAST technique in the book!!  It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since I started working my way through this book (see the first post here).  Maybe the hard-to-believe part is that I’ve stuck with it.  LOL!

So what happens next?  I still have a dozen or so pieces that need to be finished up.  I think I’ll take a short break from the Sunday Shenanigans to do that, and to contemplate what my next Sunday project will be.  Folded flowers?  Machine work?  Painting or dyeing fabric?  I’ve got a ton of books to choose from!

I’ll be back, though.  You can count on it!