Shibori by Machine

When I was writing about the SAQA conference, I briefly mentioned that I took a workshop with Ana Lisa Hedstrom.  It was how to do Shibori (Japanese tie-dyeing technique) using machine stitching. Since we had only a couple of hours, it was a quick introduction, which was enough to make me want to explore it more.

Here are some of the examples that Ana Lisa had out on a table for us to look at.

I really liked these pieces where she started with a black fabric and discharged them.

Since we had limited time and needed to do some dyeing,  Ana Lisa wanted us to sew right away. After a quick introduction, we sewed pieces of cotton and silk noil (raw silk).

I managed to sew 10 different designs.  I tried a colored fabric to see what would happen.

There were three buckets of dye color into which she just randomly threw everybody's pieces.  I thought it was weird dyeing fabric in one of the meeting rooms of the hotel.  But we had plastic spread out on the floor underneath.  And we had to go back to people's rooms to fill up the large buckets in the tub.

Once the pieces were in the dye, Ana Lisa showed us a slideshow of her work because the pieces needed to sit in the dye for awhile.  After the presentation, we pulled out the pieces and attempted to sort them.

We had all put our initials on the pieces with Sharpie beforehand.  However, it was hard to read after they were dyed.  Even though I had put 10 pieces in, I only got eight back.  So I don't have any idea how those others came out.  Someone else must have gotten them.

Once they were sorted, we had to rip out all of the stitching to see the design.  The job was made easier because we had used a cotton thread and a rayon thread together.

This is how some of mine turned out.

This was some of the cotton fabric.

This one was the light green fabric, which makes the lines pop a little in contrast to the raspberry color.

These are a couple of the raw silk pieces.  I think they are more dynamic because the fabric is a little thicker and the dye didn't penetrate as much in places where the fabric was stitched and folded.

This is my favorite piece from the bunch and I would really like to explore this some more.

Here is another student's piece, which has more contrast.

I need to do more exploring with this.  My cotton pieces didn't turn out very well.  That could be because we rushed through the dyeing process, or that my stitched lines weren't very close together.  The closer together, the less the dye can penetrate.  There are lots of variables to explore (like the fabric type, time in dye, stitching) with this technique and I hope I can get to it sometime this summer.