I’ve been collecting anti evil eye beads for years. I’m a sucker for superstitions – here are just a few of the ones I “believe” in. I love the look and feel of these lucky glass beads and decided I wanted to recreate that look on a plain white silk scarf I’ve had laying around for ages.
Over the years I’ve seen a few tutorials on fabric dying with a sharpie and rubbing alcohol. It occurred to me that I might be able to use this technique on my sild scarf and that I might be able to recreate the look of my beloved anti evil eye beads.
The technique was really very simple. To recreate you will need the following:
- A silk scarf (I like to order mine from Dharma Trading)
- two (or more) colors of Sharpies
- plastic shotglasses
- rubber bands
- rubbing alcohol
- blowdryer & iron
First I set up the plastic cups and rubber bands on the scarf.
Once my canvas was prepared, I drew the concentric circles on with the sharpies. Keep in mind that the ink will flow and spread very freely so it’s best to leave some white space and not over saturate with ink
The next bit is the trickiest. I found it easiest to work in small groups of 5 or 6 circles as you need to use the dryer to quickly dry the circles so they don’t stain any other areas you don’t want treated. Drip the alcohol slowly from the eyedropper onto the circles, being sparing with the alcohol! Too much will make a mess. You want it to dry quickly. Use the blowdryer to quickly dry off the circles you’ve just worked on before moving along. But be careful to use a low heat setting. If your scarf bursts into flame, you won’t feel all that lucky!
It’s a lot of fun to watch the patterns develop.
When the circles are all done and dried, you can remove the rubber bands and iron the scarf to set the dyes.
Good Luck!If you make this scarf you’ll surely have more of it.
They are very cool. Do you hand wash them? Dry Cleaning would probably be out, yes…?
dry cleaning out – I wash separately by hand with water, mild soap and white vinegar!