Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Shibori Surprises

Shibori - comes from the Japanese word Shiboru, meaning to squeeze or wring out (as in gathering and binding). This is a centuries old set of methods for resist-dyeing fabric, and sometimes paper. I believe this is where we got tie-dyeing from.

Four of us gathered on a Sunday afternoon in September to try out some Shibori techniques on silk and cotton fabrics. Oh my goodness - it was so much fun. One of our group members, Brian, is quite knowledgeable about Shibori methods and we had a great time trying out some of the various techniques like folding and binding and pole wrapping following his expert guidance.

Marbles, Silk Habotai, Dupioni Silk and Chiffon (Click on any photo for a bigger view)





The surprise of this technique is the most fun part for me. Those of you who create, especially if you dye fabric, know that there are no gaurantees that you'll get what you're expecting. For me it's easier to simply be delighted with what appears. Hence, Shibori surprises.



Creating resist patterns in the fabric is the point of Shibori. The patterns made with rocks were done by tying them into the fabric. The little white dots in the purple closeup were resists marks made with wax.

Arashi Shibori - we wrapped some of our silk pieces around pvc pipes of different sizes and then tied them with twine. The little bundle of fabric in front of the two poles is a scarf, folded, banded & dyed.

This is chiffon.
This purple scarf is a silk rayon scarf that I bought from Dharma.I could not have been happier with this piece.

Remember that folded up little bundle -


Here are some of the other pieces we did that day using clamps, wax, etc.

These blue pieces are actually a poly-cotton blend and had already been dyed blue. The dyes we were using do not adhere to polyester fibers which is why they are so soft.



That's it folks, at least for now. Thanks as always for stopping by and feel free to leave any comments, I love them. It feels good to be blogging again. I'm sorry I was away for so long.

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