Thursday 17 September 2015

Shibori dying

I've just returned form an excellently run course at West Dean College near Chichester with tutor Janice Dunning and 8 other wonderful ladies. We used indigo and woad and tried out lots of different techniques to resist the dyes - stitching, clamping, tying, winding, pleating, wrapping - and I have come home with some glorious cloth to make into a quilt and possibly some clothes to wear. I love blue so immersing myself in it was glorious. Thank you to Janice and the warm and inspiring companionship of the other people on the course.



So this is. It involves stitching for a long time with strong  threads in a drawn patten which you then draw tightly before dunking in the bath.


This is karamatsu - the material is folded then stitched in concentric half circles with a very clever mechanism of tying with a knot through a cloth fragment at one end and then loosely stitching into another at the other side to allow pulling and tying off!



This one is where the cloth is stitched with a fold and then pulled tight - mokume.


This was my favourite - Bomaki - which involves making tubes of material that fit over drainpes or poles. The fabric is then rucked up and it creates a wave-like pattern.



And this is clamp resist dying - itajime - this produces regular symmetrical patterns by concertina folding the fabric then on either end clamping with pegs, clips, bound wood, acrylic shapes, etc before immersing in the vat. 



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