How do you make a basket full of imagination for under $50? Let me show you!

Supplies for dying a basket full of silks:

12 - 35” prehemmed silk squares www.dharmatrading.com is $30

The Teeny Tiny Dye kit from www.dharmatrading.com is $14, comes with all the dye, chemicals, gloves and you need for 12 silks.

OR you can buy the dye and chemicals separately, it’s more expensive but you’ll have enough dye to make many many more silks or do some clothing as well.

One jar each of three colors dye in three primaries, the 2 oz size: lemmon, turquoise, fushia OR chinese red, cobalt, golden yellow ect. this will be about $13

1 lb. Soda ash fixer $2

16 oz. Bottle of synthrapol detergent $4

Dust mask

Rubber gloves

Eye goggles

6 quart size plastic zip bags or a 6 plastic containers from the recycle bin big enough to squish your pieces of silk into (you want them to be pretty scrunched.)

6 plastic cups- at least 8 oz.

1 plastic milk jug or the like to mix the soda ash solution

Spoons or butter knives for stirring

1 tablespoon measure

Funnel (optional)

*Use disposable items or ones you can devote to non-food use.

Cover the area you are working in with a cut open plastic trash bag or work outside.

The first step is to mix your dyes into a liquid concentrate. Wear your dust mask, gloves and eye goggles for this step, the dyes are an irritant.

Fill three cups with about 6 oz of hot water (from the tap is fine, I have hard water and it has never been a problem)

Measure 3Tablespoons (or the whole packet in the teeny kit) into the water.

Stir each color thoroughly until completely mixed.

Mix your secondary colors… you could measure out exactly this much red, that much yellow but it’s really simple enough to just pour a bit of each color together to get orange, green and purple.

Now you have 6 cups of concentrated dye.

Measure 5 Tablespoons of Soda Ash into the plastic jug (this is where the funnel is really helpful) and then fill it with a half gallon of your hottest tap water. Cap and shake to mix thoroughly.

Wet the 12 silks in the sink and wring them out gently so they are still pretty wet.

Put 2 silks into each plastic zip bag or plastic tub.

Pour the contents of one dye concentrate cup into each bag and seal. Squish them gently to disperse the dye. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Open each bag one at a time and pour in about ½- ¾ cup of the soda ash solution. Reseal and squish again lightly.

Leave to sit for 30-60 minutes.

Open each bag and rinse the silks one color at a time in the sink under lukewarm water.

Fill your washing machine with a cold water cycle and a quarter cup of synthropol.

When the washer is full of soapy water, throw all the silks in together and let it run. (you can use fabric softener to return the soft hand of the fabric)

Dry in the dryer on medium.