scenes from shibori saturday

well this was certainly a long and fruitful day. my mother came over to lend me a hand with the dyeing and i was thankful to have her.

as her mother's day present she got to pick from what we dyed. these are all work in progress shots taken along the way. they show the cloth after it has been dunked in the dye and allowed to soak for a time. the cloth comes out sort of an acid green and as it oxidizes it turns the indigo color and repeated dunkings makes the cloth darker and more saturated.

 i learned a huge amount, enough that after lunch we went and grabbed more cloth because there is plenty of dye to go around. the fabric has been rinsed, washed, dryed and ironed and tomorrow if it is sunny i'll take final photos to show the final ranges of patterns.

for all these swaths i tried to replicate the traditional types of techniques. about 12 yards in total was dyed today and i definitely know which techniques i like best for next time

 

the cloth resting while oxidizing after being in the dye

techniques involving multiple folds and pleats

my favorite technique by far - a wood grain pattern achieved by rolling the cloth around a cylinder, wrapping it with twine and then scrunching the whole roll down to the bottom of the cylinder



multiple triangular folds



striped pillowcases done with the wood grain technique

for this the cloth was folded into a very small square and rubberbanded between two pieces of wood. this is the swath my mother chose for her present


and this is the swath that will go to someone special for her to make a skirt out of i hope. this technique was achieved by gathering small pulls of cloth and rubberbanding them around stones. i am pleased my stone pattern is fairly even. the bottom is wrapped at the edge with a lot of twine to create a border

stay tuned for final photos in the sun