Komasu shibori

This was a desperate attempt to breathe a last life into my unloved wrap with the screenprint birds on it. 
I had fabrics-store's bluebonnet colored linen.  It was used for a long time as a size 6, but that size was not really working for me anymore.  I didn't realize it was the size, but thought it was just too boring.   In an effort to make the wrap more exciting, I screenprinted scissor-tailed flycatchers on it.

original birds

But they didn't really show up much when wrapping, unless I made a point of it.  I was thinking about what to do come winter and so I ended up chopping the 6 into a 2 + a piece for a warm wide-bodied pod.  Now I had 2 bird wraps and my collection was heavily skewed towards blue wraps.  The birds started cracking and peeling off, so I went ahead and stripped the wrap with two packets of Rit color remover.

stripped with one bird remaining

The screenprint did not strip off as I had hoped, but the wrap itself came out to an ugly old dishtowel color, which was nice in that it was light and totally workable for an overdye.  I left it to sit in hot water with soda ash and dawn and once it had sat until it was cooler, scrubbing at the birds with an old dishwashing brush.  Eventually the birds but one (which hadn't peeled so I thought I might leave it) looked mostly removed so I threw the wrap in for a hot scour in the washing machine and was pleasantly surprised by how the unevenness in color leftover from the strip seemed to have leveled and also how the birds were even more invisible than I expected.  I decided to go back a step and remove the last bird and rescour.  Next I dyed the wrap using a mixture of fuchsia and royal blue.

'light' purple first dip

It came out darker than I was intending, since this was just supposed to be a base layer to cover the dishtowel color.  OH well it's pretty.  Time to tie up the shibori.  I used the komasu "small squares" technique after ironing into accordion folds.  I cut two triangles from cardstock to use as templates.  One triangle was half the size of the other.  The spacing in between the big stitched triangles was one leg of the little triangle and the spacing in between the little stitched triangles was one leg of the big triangle.  I laid the templates out onto the wrap and just marked with a pencil.   To make your stitched guides, you make a long, evenly spaced running stitch in a right equilateral triangle with the hypotenuse running along the fold of the fabric.  You want to have a knot at one end of the stitching and the other end loose.   Then once all the guides are stitched in, you can start cinching up the stitching to create little pleated tufts.  Bind the tufts by wrapping tightly with thread at 2 points to get the double layered squares.  I like using kamosage knots because they are easy to undo later and quick to make in the first place.  Additionally, they have a surprisingly helpful grip if, afterwards, you reverse your binding direction at the next tuft.    The book I learned the technique from is called Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing.

pleated and stitched

stitching cinched and bound

on both ridges and valleys of pleats

I cut off one of the old hems from which the birds hadn't flown to test color during the second dip. 
I put the grey dye in the bath, but it wasn't enough grey, so I ended up adding some old royal blue I had mixed up (of unknown strength).  That was too pink still, so I added even more royal blue.  Then it got too blue, so I added fuchsia.  When I got it to my satisfaction, I added the soda ash.    After a while of swishing to make sure the dye uptook evenly, I moved on to rinse stage--letting it soak for about an hour.  Then I undid the binding with the seam-ripper (carefully) then a final rinse, then hot wash.  The rinse from the hot wash actually came out really clear the first time, which rather surprised me. 

 

total hands-on time: 18+ hours
screenprint:  3hours
chop &rehem: .5 hours
strip: 1 hour
scrub birds off: 3 hours
dye purple: 2 hours
tie in shibori: 6 hours
dye deep purple: 2 hours
untie: .5 hr
That doesn't even include all the time it was being hand rinsed, washed, scoured, or my hands being cleaned up.

I am really enjoying this wrap so far.   I think it was well worth all the time I've spent on it in all its various stages.  And as usual, I learned a TON of lessons and techniques.