Saturday, March 3, 2018

Shibori Do-over

I had made a shibori silk scarf awhile ago, just turquoise and white pole-wrapped, pretty, but not very interesting. Sorry that I didn't take a picture. I decided to overdye it and clamp it with big jar lids that I held in place with spring clamps. I over dyed it in sun yellow, hoping that the turquoise that was exposed would be lime green with the circles staying turquoise and white. Here is the result.





Again, pretty, but not quite what I expected. The circles were very blurry, which made me suspect that the spring clamps did not clamp down tight enough and allowed dye to seep in around the edges. It was also a much brighter green than I expected.


Sooooo, let's do it again.




This time I used metal can lids and clamped down very tightly with C-clamps and chopsticks tightened with rubber bands. I used Olive Green for the dye.





Much better, don't you think? I liked the sharp edges to the circles and the somewhat dulled down color of the green.




I'm not sure what caused the brown halos around part of the circles or the little pig tails, but I like it.

I want to do some more, now that I know the secret to sharper edges. I would like to get some acrylic shapes. Squares would be fun, too.

2 comments:

Linda M said...

It turned out great. I found that I got sharper edge circles if I wet the fabric before clamping the shapes down, I have plexiglass shapes.

Norma Schlager said...

I did wet the fabric both times. I think it was the tightness of the clamping that made the difference.