Antique Paisley

Have you ever hooked antique paisley shawl strips in one of your pieces?  I have and it did add a nice look to the piece.  Even at my local thrift shop just once I had the opportunity to pick up a piece of paisley and was very surprised to find it there.  It is old and fragile and mine didn't fare too well when trying to hook it. 

However, I purchased a nice piece from Kris Miller at camp once and hooked well.  You may wish to contact Kris to see is she has any paisley for sale if you are interested in trying it.  Seems to me it was like $10 or $12 for a small piece about the size of the ones rolled up in the picture above.  When hooking with real paisley you need to cut the strips wider and it will curl, which is exactly what you want it to do.

My friend Deb went bonkers over antique paisley and was on the hunt to purchase as much for as good a price as she could.  For any of you who have checked, you realize paisley is expensive.  Yet my dear friend Deb gifted me with strips from all the various colored paisley she purchased.  In the picture below, all of the paisley is her gift to me except for those two little pieces to the far right.  That would be a small piece of the fragile paisley I pick up at the local thrift shop but as mentioned, is too fragile to hook with.

And this is a rug that Deb hooked with Barb Carroll called Hildafern (a Woolley Fox design).  All the leaves in this rug were hooked with paisley.  As you can tell she has quite a selection of colors.

So this weekend I intend to try something new with the dye equipment.  One of the hand outs that Betsy Reed gave the class was an article by Joan Moshimer on "How to Dye Paisley". 

No, it isn't  over dying the already beautiful antique paisley, it is trying to achieve a faux paisley look.  Well of course it won't look like real paisley, but I'm going to give it a try and will post everything in stages for you to see what I do.  I just might end up with a mess because if complimentary colors are used in equal quantities it could be that I'll end up with a gray mess.  But hey, it's been a while since I've pulled out my dye equipment and want to play a little.  Besides, the heat will be nice with these sub freezing temperatures here.

Have a great evening, try and stay warm and be kind to one another.

Saundra