Silk Ties: product development

I've been working with my prototype silk ties again, trying to find the best method of dyeing them. I'm using silk tie blanks from Dharma Trading Company, and their Setasilk silk paints. (See this entry: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/06/silk-ties-attempt-numbers-2-and-3.html)

The tie on the left was disassembled prior to dyeing, and the interfacing was taken out. Then, after dyeing, I sewed it back together. The silk is cut on the bias, and it stretched a bit out of shape in the whole process, so I had a hard time getting the ends to line back up again.

The tie on the right was dyed all together, which made it easier to get the pattern in the right place. However, the edges ended up kind of wavy in the dyeing process.

I wanted to make sure that the dyes could stand up to cleaning, so I sent the blue tie to the dry cleaners. The picture above is taken after it got back. If you look at both ties, you can see that there isn't any noticeable fading of color intensity after cleaning. And on the plus side, most of the waviness seems to have evened itself back out.

I'm going to have my husband test drive both ties, to see which method of dyeing gives the most wearable result. But right now, I'm leaning toward dyeing them all together, and then running each one through the dry cleaners before putting them up in the Etsy shop. I've almost got a salable product!