Do I have to wash my silk before I paint on it?

“Do I have to wash my silk before I paint on it?” Great question!

Here in Australia, I often bought my kilometres of silk from China, and I quickly learned I had to pre-wash everything, including the silk on a roll I was buying within Australia.

I always suggested to my students that they try a small scarf or small piece of silk on a project, without pre-washing, and see how it goes.

When the silk dyes did not flow properly for me, that’s when I would discover that the silk had been treated with a product that needed to be washed out before I could hand paint my silk.

So it really depends on where you are buying your silk from, who you’re buying your silk from, and whether the treated silk is okay to paint silk dyes on directly or not 🙂

Best of luck with your experiments and have a fabulous time with your silk painting projects!

Let me know if you have any other questions about washing your silk before you paint on it 🙂

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