Painting Scarves

Finished: Plum's scarf on the left, mine is on the right

I am a firm believer in being creative and if possible, taking every opportunity possible to be creative with others. This is one of the main reasons that I love my yarn group (beyond the fact they are a completely awesome group of people). Today was one of those days that you can only hope to enjoy - a simple day with creative intent spent with wonderful friends.

Today - we painted silk scarves.

Now, I personally do not know who met this lady who teaches the class, but a time and location were set and we gathered to laugh, create, laugh, eat, and create some more.

My daughter, whom I usually call Plum (and that's how I shall refer to her here as well), and I made our way to the church just before 10 am. The plan was to paint scarves for 2 hours, have lunch, return to the church and finish off the scarves. We jumped right in doing a quick "how to" on sample scarves but all 14 of us were ready to go on our own. I loved the atmosphere today - the laughter and telling of stories, all while we focused on our own scarf - our own creative expression.

Plum started out trying to create a large flower - and until we salted the scarves, she had achieved her goal. Some went with stripes, others went with splotches - inspiration was flowing.

There was just something really cool about it. I don't often get to go to these sort of classes because I have children, but now both are old enough that I can sneak one in every once in a while, provided the timing is right.

Another observation I made during this class was just how encouraging people are - and its infectious. I think it would be good for people who are not as encouraging or who are negative to sit down with a group of women like my friends from yarn group. Perhaps it could teach them a thing or two about creativity and encouragement.

As sad as it is to say, many people do not receive encouragement from friends or family. And coming from where I did with the parents that I had, that is such a sad thought.

Once we got our scarves to a point to where they were sitting with salt on them, about an hour after starting, we were ready to head to lunch - the scarves could sit and the salt could do all the work while we enjoyed each other's company at a local Mexican restaurant - appropriate for Cinco de Mayo, don't you think?

Oh we ate and we ate - Star Wars was referenced, we talked about knitting and crochet, traveling, other great restaurants, and who knows what else. The conversation was flying (almost as fast as hooks and needles are during our weekly yarn group).

a salted scarf

We got there and the instructor began gathering all the salted scarves and taking them off to set the dye for us in a special wash. Again - we talked.... not a difficult thing to get us to do!

another salted scarf

Once everything was set and ironed, each of us walked away with an awesome scarf - well, I walked away with two because Plum gave me the scarf she painted as an early Mother's Day Gift. I almost cried.

Plum and her salted scarf