Dye Your Own Rainbow Playsilk At Home

Dyeing your own rainbow playsilk is so easy! 

Here's what you'll need: 

1. The 3 primary colors: red, yellow and blue. In the video I'm using Jaqcuard acid dyes. You can get the exact dye I'm using here, or you can use food coloring from any grocery store - in fact, if you're dyeing with children, I recommend using food coloring.

2. A white playsilk. You may use ours, but don't have to. Any white silk will work.

3. Hot water.

4. Vinegar

5. A large bowl.

6. Rubber gloves (if using commercial dye)

And that's it! You'll only need to dip your playsilk into dye 4 times as follows:

We'll begin by adding hot water into your bowl and mixing yellow dye and 1/4 cup of vinegar into the water. Stir thoroughly, making sure the dye is completely dissolved.

(If you want to experiment with dip dyeing mix all three colors in three different bowls at once so you can play with the colors.)

Fold your white playsilk nearly in half, leaving 1/6th of the silk overlapped (this will be purple).

1) Dip half of your playsilk in yellow, leaving both ends white. (See Figure 1.) Repeat with all of your playsilks. 

Rinse the playsilks with cold water and wring to dry.

Empty your bowl and mix your blue dye with hot water, again stirring until the dye is completely dissolved (add 1/2 cup of vinegar if using acid dyes).

2) Dip half the playsilk in blue (see Figure 1.), overlapping one third of your yellow, creating green.

Empty your bowl and mix your red dye with hot water, again stirring until the dye is completely dissolved (add 1/2 cup of vinegar if using acid dyes).

3) Dip 1/3 of your playsilk (on the white end of the yellow) into red, creating orange where the red overlaps the yellow.

4) Dip 1/3 of the blue end of the playsilk in red, creating purple.

And voila! Congratulations! You've made your very own beautiful rainbow playsilk.

Figure 1.