Weekend Shibori Class - Part 1

What a great weekend in Lancaster, PA, taking a workshop at the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsman.  It was a full 2-day workshop learning techniques of Japanese shibori dyeing - methods of wrapping, folding, stitching, binding and clamping to create beautiful patterns and textures in fabric. 

Our instructor was Kachina Martin, who is a public school art teacher as well as craftsman and juried member of the Pennsylvania guild.  We started off learning about direct dye application on a scarf and allowing it to "batch" or cure, wrapped in plastic, overnight.

   This project would get a second technique and dye applied on day 2.

We also learned several stitching and binding techniques.  On this piece, rows of running stitches are pulled to tightly gather the fabric, then the thread is knotted to keep it pulled tight before dyeing.

Here's what it looks like after dyeing and removing the stitching.

Another technique we learned was pole wrapping.  Using pvc pipe, the fabric (or scarf or item to be dyed) is wrapped around the pipe.  As it is wrapped, it is bound with cord and scrunched together, so that a large amount of fabric takes up very little space.  Several scarves or pieces of fabric can be wrapped on the same pole.

This is the first piece of fabric that I pole wrapped.  You'll see that parts of this piece later have other techniques applied as well. It was folded in half lengthwise and positioned diagonally on the pole to get the chevron effect you see here.

That's what we did in the morning of day 1.  Look for another installment tomorrow!