Shibori Process

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.