We have revisited the technique of silk painting and made a sarong to wear over a bikini on the beach. Use a black Gutta to control the colours and pattern on the silk. Fill in the designs with different colours. Wrap up the silk and fix in a saucepan.
Cut a piece of silk measuring approx. 170cm and place it on top of a piece of polyester wadding. Draw the design with black Gutta and leave it to dry. The line must be continuous preventing the colours from running.
Fill in the design with water-based silk paints and ensure a good brush is used which can hold a lot of paint.
Painting around the outside of the design is the hardest part. You must make sure you do not to get any dry edges. Once you have started, you must complete the entire piece.
Paint over the dry edges and remove any dry edges by pushing the brush well into the silk with wet paint.
You can add other colours and let these run into each other to mix the colour at the edges.
After drying, wrap the silk in cotton fabric. Make sure that there is fabric both over and under the silk and ensure one piece of silk is not touching the other.
Fold until you have a parcel that fits in a large saucepan. If you wish you can wrap the parcel in aluminium foil as well to ensure that no water gets into the silk.
Put large stones or clay pots in the bottom of the pan. Pour water in the bottom and bring it to boil. The water should not touch the parcel, which is placed on top of the stones/pots. Place a towel over the saucepan before putting on the lid to prevent the condensed water from dripping. Simmer for approx. 2 hours to fix the colour.
Rinse off the excess colour then dry the silk and iron when dry.
Cut two strips, double over and sew as shown. This is for the tie-strings.
Sew the large piece with a small double seam on the two short sides. The seam is along the sides. Sew on the two tie-strings.
