Silk paper and dyeing

I found this brilliant book in our local library.

I love the cover so much I just knew it would be filled with delightful treasure
The title is:- Silk Paper for textile artists by Sarah Lawrence..

So I have been adventurous and had a go at dying silk mawata hankies in the microwave.

I soaked the silk in warm water and ashing up liquid..

Then put them into an old ice-cream container so that the dye does not ruin any other dish.

 I had some procion dye already mixed  so I poured this over the hankies.

Then I put it into the microwave for 3 minutes.

                                      Here's the end product drying on a flat surface.

At the moment it looks like something for Halloween! but I know that i intend to layer it with some other fabrics and stitch so that it will become a fantastic background for me to stitch on.

                                                       Silk Paper making

After this I has a go at making silk paper using PVA. I expected it to be a little bit like making wet felt, but somehow it was trickier.

The next layer is added horizontally.
I think I ought to have repeated this process again .

The noil strands were then covered with a mawata hanky.

Very hot water was poured over the silk which was wrapped inside a lint free cloth. i would usually use a J cloth, but I've run out of them ... obviously I have done too much cleaning lately!

So The silk was laid out vertically

The silk was gently agitated using the back of a spoon ... remember the water is still  hot.

Then the cloth and silk are submerged in a mixture of water and PVA glue. the mixtures should be at a ration of 5 to 1.  I'd seen my friends silk paper refuse to stick together so I poured lots of the glue mixture onto my silk.
The I squeezed it and repeated the process a couple more ties for good luck.

The cloth has to be carefully peeled away and the silk left to dry.

This looks like bark to me and as it's autumn I feel sure that it will become something natural and leaf like. 

I enjoyed making the paper but feel that there is more experimentation to b done before a truly satisfactory paper is created.