Here's the long awaited shibori process post!
I'll take you through my work on Three Dragonflies pictured here.
This piece ended up as a noren, what the Japanese use as a fabric panel in front of a door or a fabric room divider. The yarn I used is natural colored silk noil, really luxurious after it is dyed and washed.
I worked this shibori piece on the loom, throwing my pattern pics after 4 tabby pics.
The silk tabby was a joy with which to work. I used brown 6 strand embroidery floss for the pattern throw. After the entire piece was woven, I then took it off the loom and started the hand work process of hand-loomed and traditional shibori.
First I drew a circle on the woven fabric, and carefully removed the embroidery floss, so that a circle of plain woven fabric remained. I left the strings of floss as long as possible, because I will need to draw the floss up in a later stage of the process.
In this circle, I drew my dragonflies with a special blue ink pen which will disappear when water touches the ink. Next, I will begin the traditional shibori process of stitching my little dragonflies.
After the hand-stitching is in place, it is time to gather the shibori threads. First I pull up the little hand-stitched dragonflies. Next, I carefully knot one side of the embroidery floss, and gather up the other side, knotting the edges at tightly as I can. It is important to pull the threads up as tightly as possible, without breaking them, of course. The worst thing you can do in shibori is to break
a thread!
Next, dye! Since the fabric is silk, I used an acid dye which involved heat to set the dye. I immersed the fabric and dyed it a fire red--a color out of my "box." I'm hoping for a brilliant red, an even dye and a good resist for the shibori, both hand-loomed and traditionally stitched. After dyeing, a little rinsing and drying and then the process of removing the shibori threads, both woven and hand stitched.
Here is the finished piece again--although I also added a little more embellishment with a few beads here and there. Three traditional shibori dragonflies surrounded by a field of hand-loomed shibori.
This was a fun project to design and produce. My dragonflies continue to buzz round their little field, flying 'round and 'round and 'round.
Next up: some double-dip dyeing for a three color look.
I taught my class, "Traditional to Faux: Exploring Hand-Loomed & Traditional Shibori." I'll include a few pictures of the work the shibori students produced. The students were all quick learners and produced some lovely work. They're now working on their scarves and we will get together in the future to do some more tying and dying of our hand-loomed shibori fabrics!
