More Shibori

These next four Shibori samples involve stitching by hand using a strong thread and then pulling it all up very tight before putting it in the dye bath. Be sure to click on each picture for a bigger view.

This one is rather tedious. I drew the wavy lines with water soluble graphite pencil and then folded on each line so that I was sewing through two layers of fabric very close to the fold.

It was suggested that I try machine stitching and this is the result. While it was a cinch to sew, pulling up the threads was not. I was so afraid of them breaking and I didn't get them evenly pulled. But I am going to try it again, using Jeans Stitch thread in the bobbin. That would make it easier to pull tight.

This was done with just straight rows of running stitch by hand, I am using that Jeans Stitch thread by YLI for all my hand stitching. It is very strong and won't break, no matter how hard I pull.

Several people thought that they saw "people" in this piece. Do you?

This is one of my favorites, although it is rather tedious, too You fold your fabric in half length wise then draw concentric half circles in a row. First sew all the larger circles, jumping from one circle to the next without cutting the thread. Do all three rows this way then pull up all the 3 threads tightly. Put in dye-bath.

After the dye bath for all of these, you rinse and rinse then take out the stitching, wearing rubber gloves unless you want blue hands. Then wash in the washing machine in hot water with Synthropol, a soap meant for removing excess dye.

Now I am doing more pole wrapping in a different manner that the ones I showed yesterday and more stitch resist and folding and clamping. For now I am sticking to blue and white, but plan to branch out to other colors or color over color. The possibilities are endless. Stay tuned!