Steam Setting Silk Dyes- Vertical Steamer by Lynne

For those of you who use silk dyes and need to steam set them this is the one of our team members - Lynne from FantasticPheasant, made her steamer.

Here is what Lynne had to share on our team forum:

I find steaming to be a challenge in the silk painting process. When I first started using silk dyes I steamed the silk on the stove top with a vegetable steamer, to my surprise this worked pretty well. I would roll the silk in newsprint paper then coil it (like a cinnamon bun) then steam for a couple of hours. The problem with this procedure was that the silk sometimes got wet and folds would be steam set in the silk.

Since then I've created a vertical steamer. Being the frugal person I am, I made one instead of spending a lot of money to buy one.

I created the vertical stack with heating/air conditioning pipes with two groves cut in the top with a metal BBQ skewer placed in the groves to hang the silk from. I set this in a pot and place the whole thing on an electric hot plate. I place the pot lid on top of the stack covered in foil paper to keep the steam in. I still wrap the silk in newsprint and roll it (like a jelly roll) and hang in the stack. This works extremely well.

I'd love to hear how others steam their silk!

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Thanks Lynne for sharing your steamer with us today!

How about the rest of you, how do you steam your silk?