A Day of Shibori Dyeing

Two mornings this week I got up at dawn (which is pretty late this time of year but still...).  There were just enough clouds to make the sunrise really pretty both days.  The second day I grabbed the camera and hurried down to our beach trying to catch the first few rays!

 Thursday I headed to my friend Dianne's house with a car packed full of dyes, clamps and clothespins as she wanted to learn to do some shibori.  I just grabbed a few of my already dyed fabrics that I had brought down here.  They were some of the lighter colors that were just boring as they were.  I bring down fabrics that are small chunks for the most part figuring on doing some random scrappy quilts.  I tend to dye larger pieces of yardage these days.  This piece was an exception in that it was a large piece of fabric dyed sun yellow originally.  This was sewn into a double tube and put on a 5 inch wide piece of pvc pipe and then pushed down with rubber bands at the top and bottom.  It was dyed in a brown/black dye bath.  I used a bit too much dye in these dye baths but you do get a gradation effect.

This is one of my favorite techniques for shibori and is the most labor intensive.  You basically put folds in the fabric and then do a running stitch and pull tight.  You can make any design  you want.  Again a little too much dye so not enough definition.  It was again brown/black over a pale yellow.

This was another yellow overdyed piece.  It was dyed with a brown/scarlet mix and was again sewn into a tube and put on a 5 inch pvc pipe.

 This was a fat quarter from one of my overdyeing experiments.  It was a plain leaf green which I inadvertently overdyed with leaf green!  This was twisted on the diagonal on a 5 inch pvc pipe with rubber bands at either end.

This is the same as above only using a much smaller pvc pipe -- probably only an inch in diameter.

This was another piece that was sewn into a tube and pushed down a 5 inch pipe.  It is a half yard piece and was yellow and obviously from the way it took color, it was variegated.  It is very difficult to see the variegation in a yellow but you can see it when overdyed as the more intensely yellow dyed will not take as much of the blue (in this case).

 This was a clamped piece where I used two mirrors and clamps (which kept falling off as the mirrors were too slippery).  This was accordion folded in one direction and then again in the opposite direction.

This is again the mirrors clamped on a fat quarter that was pink.  I presoaked the pink so it resisted the dye a bit more.  I overdyed with blue/violet.

All of these pieces were immersion dyed.  I used about 3 gal of water, 2 cups of salt per container and about 4 tsps of dye.  I added 5 tbsps of soda ash after fifteen minutes and then let it sit for another hour.  To get better penetration, it helps to move the stuff around during the first half hour.