And More Shibori

I've been away for a few days visiting relatives in upstate NY, where it should have been nice and cool. But it was just as hot as most of the rest of the country. We had a delightful time anyway, getting to see some relatives that we haven't seen in ages. The visit was mainly for a memorial for my first cousin who passed away this winter and it was bittersweet because of that.

Before I went I did some more shibori experimenting. Here are just a few of the results.

This was done by wrapping the fabric on the poles diagonally, then wrapping with thread before scrunching down. It was much more labor intensive than sewing a tube and scrunching down and I don't think it was worth the extra effort.

Here's the sewn tube scrunched down, this time done on a pre-dyed fabric. Reminds me of tiger stripes. I did this in a couple of colors.

This is the tube sewn, scrunched down version again. After rinsing and washing, the one on the left was done a second time in the same color dye. I like the intense, close together look of the wiggly stripes.

I experimented some more with doing the sewing by machine. I put Jeans Stitch thread in the bottom and was able to get it pulled very tight before dyeing. The results are not bad, but not as good as hand sewn.

Here is a good example of hand sewn versus machine sewn. They were both done in the exact same pattern of half circles sewn on a folded strip. The one on the left is hand sewn and a much crisper design.

These last three are a few of the folded and clamped designs I tried. I accordion pleated them, pressing each pleat as I went with a hot iron. After pleating and folding, a wooden shape was clamped onto each side of the bundle and submerged into the dye. The wooden shapes bought at Michael's, came in various shapes and sizes and were quite inexpensive. I think I achieved some very interesting patterns. This first one was folded into triangle shapes and used wooden triangles. I did these in different sizes.

I did several circle ones using different sized circles and different widths of folds.

This used a fun flower shape. It's rather whimsical, but I'm not sure if I would use it in a quilt.

I'll do one more posting tomorrow with what was a pleasant surprise for me.