Wholesale Handmade Seed Papers and Hand Dyed Silk Ribbons Since 1995

Attention: These silk ribbons are hand dyed, each spool is unique. The colors may vary from what is seen on your screen; please order a free sample and see it in person.

Wash before use! Our hand dyed silks need to be washed before use to prevent transference of dye (if they will be exposed to water in any form). In our wash process we cannot get the last bits of unexhausted dye molecules out of the fabric. For a dry use application this is not relevant as there is only slight crocking on only a few of the more vibrant colors. The bleeding that happens with our silks can be prevented by gentle handwashing (really no more than a light soak in a bowl of water) of the length you intend to work with. Since our silks are dyed and washed on the spool, the pressure present while the spools are tightly wrapped prevents the last few dye particles from leaving the material. Once you unwrap the silk for use on your project the last bit of dye will easily leave the fabric and you don’t want that to end up on a bride’s gown! A gentle hand wash will not alter the color of the fabric at all. No cleaning agent or setting agent is necessary, the dye has already bonded with the silk fibers. The excess just needs to be rinsed away. After rinsing you can squeeze the water out, lay the silk flat on a towel to dry and then iron flat if you prefer to avoid wrinkles. We don’t recommend hanging the silk to dry as it will stretch and may become narrower than you want.

These silk ribbons are colorfast (after washing), washable, dry-cleanable, 100% silk and are bias cut which gives them a dramatic drape. Because of the bias cut, there is a seam every two yards in the continuous spool and the raw unfinished edges will naturally soften with wear. We finish our seams with silk thread to help create a seamless appearance throughout the spools.

We highly recommend ordering samples if your project is color sensitive. We also recommend washing a sample to see how it behaves before working the silk into anything that may be exposed to water.

These Earth Silk spools are made by hand in our Seattle studio. Our hand dipped dyeing process produces a unique look with subtle qualities that cannot be found in traditional ribbon dyeing. Our process creates almost zero waste and generates a stunning work of art.

In conventional dyeing the thread is first dyed in a vat and then loaded onto a loom where the strands are woven together to form the ribbon. In our hand dyeing method all of the action happens while the bias cut spool is tightly wrapped, and that pressure influences where and how the dye is absorbed. We hope you enjoy our ribbons as much as we like making them! There are over 150 colors in our line and we continue to add more as our customers continue to bring custom requests. Contact us with yours!

In the many years that we have been working with the conventional silk dyes we have encountered time and time again inconsistencies from the dye manufacturer's goods that impact our colors. What we have found, for instance, is that one batch of "Black" has a visible green undertone to it and the next batch of "Black" has a visible blue undertone to it. Calls to the dye manufacture unfortunately are not met with helpful comments. Rather than speaking about the noticeable visible difference in both the wet and dry format of their product, they enquired about our dyeing process, suggesting that our methods were the root cause of the color difference in the finished fabric. As a result; when we open a new container of dye we have to rebuild some of our colors so that our finished silks match the ribbon colors you see on your sample cards. This is leading to a build up of "seconds" that we have on hand of colors that are close, but not on the money. You can find these in our store here in Seattle and on Etsy. Thanks for your understanding if you encounter color differences and know that we do everything we can to ensure a consistent and quality product of the highest standards.

Copyright 2024 All Rights Reserved - Of The Earth 7706 Aurora Ave. N Seattle, Washington 98103