Silken Monkey Painted & Bathing Beauty Takes the Post Steaming Plunge

Late yesterday the Bathing Beauty silk painting came out of the final steaming and was ready to be rinsed. This is a stressful time because so much can go wrong at this point, the dyes can bleed if the proper temperature was not reached during the 3 hour steaming, there can be water marks where droplets of steam hit the silk during the steaming process if it was not wrapped carefully enough, or the black resist can back-stain the silk with little black greasy looking spots if the silk is not handled properly during the rinsing. Any of these “disasters” can render the paining a failure at this point so I was surprised when Don came in with the camera because he normally instinctually stays away until the all is well signal goes out. Plus it was late and my pain level was at high plus. But in true beauty queen style the bathing beauty took the crown and came out picture perfect!

It is getting so crowded in the studio with all the large silks from this order in various stages of completion that I had to move the Model T & Driver out into the hallway after I applied the resist so I had room to move onto the next painting while the resist dried. My last studio was about 4 times larger than the one I have now and I sure have missed that extra space while doing this custom order!

The line is filing up with painting in various stages of completion. The black and white ones have been through the first steaming and are waitng to be dyed, (there are 3 hanging tripled up together on the line), the bathing beauty has been through both steamings and is waiting to be ironed, the Monkey is still in the stretcher as the dyes dry and cure overnight before it goes through its final steaming. The four finished paintings are folded and stored away to keep them safe from errant dyes.

The Monkey and Fat Baby will be sent off to the seamstress after they are steamed to have the face holes cut out and bound with silk that I will dye to match his fur color and baby bonnet. All in all progress is being made and I am pleased with the results so far.