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. 

Itajime

A clamped resist experiment.

Sorry folks, I've given up on wasting my time formatting these entries.  Apparently the only way to achieve concinnity (I hope that's a real word and M-W isn't hoodwinking me, the red squiggle's hanging around) throughout posts is just to leave things in default, which unfortunately means Times New Roman--gag.  Well if you want pretty, skip to the pictures like everyone else.


In this project I wanted to end up with some cool hexagonal--or at the very least triangular-- repeat pattern over the whole of the fabric.   So I folded it in half lengthwise, then in half again lengthwise, then a la paper football, only instead of a right isosceles triangle I did equilateral triangles.  Then I smooshed the fabric all down between 2 vitamin water caps and clamped them with this crazy easy grip clamp thing I found in the garage.  Only apparently I could have smooshed it more if I'd used it the right way.  It didn't make much difference anyway.  I then dipped the fabric in some leftover green dye from a tie dye project a couple weeks ago, added soda ash, and left it for a while.  An hour?  I dunno.  When I rinsed it out, it turned out that the dye had really only highlighted the edges of the folds, and due to my thoughtless folding, the folds that were more in the center hardly got any dye.  The circles I was hoping would appear were nowhere to be seen.    End of round 1.

Round 2:  I basically folded it exactly the same except I tried to be conscious of which direction of folding would allow more raw folded edges to be accessible to the dye.  I had figured out how to get the clamp tighter and thought that was going to help.  I soaked in soda ash then dipped in a concentrated mixture of royal blue for another couple of hours.  I still wasn't satisfied--I wanted circles, by golly!  So before my dye exhausted I folded it up one more time for another round.

Round 3:  I folded this time just into squares because I was hungry and dinnertime and whining toddlers are hardly conducive to repeating the same time-consuming fold for the third time.  This time I let it just sit overnight, and when I rinsed in the morning, voila! there were my circles.  Of course that wasn't really the effect I was going for, but still totally cool. 

Round 1: clamped fabric football

Round 1: green dye soak

Round 1: results

Round 2: results

Round 3: square fold clamped

Final product

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Having done the shibori method which reveals little bubble-like rings on diapers, I had the idea that it would be cool to have a burbly line of them running down the center of a wrap.  Once I had thought of that, I was reminded of a peculiar phenomenon that happens when you're rowing an 8 and your boat is "set".  Even through the creaking of the seats, groaning of the oarlocks, and murmur of the coxswain, you can hear a line of bubbles passing right along the center of the hull.  It's magical.  The boat I most often rowed in was called Dawn Treader.  There was one time we were rowing along and I and my seatmate were just resting our oars on the water to provide balance during a drill.  I looked down into the water right as we were passing where Barton Creek pours out onto Town Lake, and true to its namesake the Dawn Treader was passing over the most amazing views, the colors were so spectacular it could have been a tropical ocean, rather than a toxic city lake.  What if I could recreate that feeling on a wrap?   I had to try.  

this is not a good example of "set", the weather sucks, and it's sloppy bladework, but this is my DT in a race

First I chopped, hemmed, washed the linen.  Then I took a spool of that synthetic twine (nylon? polyester? I'm not sure) ans tied in about a gazillion little tufts.  This is where some people tie around rocks or marbles, but I like tufts.  I wrapped the string around the neck of each tuft 2-4 times, and then secured it with a half hitch before moving on to the next tuft.  All the way down the fabric, with one long piece of string, theoretically so it is easier to untie at the end of the dye process.  Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.  I recommend wrapping your fingers in band aids or tape as soon as you notice hot spots forming.

tied

After I had gotten all the tying done, I used clear Elmer's glue gel to add in small dots for smaller bubbles.  This took a lot of patience, and I highly recommend putting something under the fabric that will not get stuck to the glue.  I glued on top of my cutting mat. I got a little trigger-happy with the glue, and consequently hae more spots than really I actually want.  Then just wait for it all to dry. 

Once my dye arrived, I mixed up colors from scratch.  On one rail, I just used straight turquoise; on the other, turquoise mixed with lemon yellow; in the center it was turquoise mixed with royal blue.  And perhaps cobalt?  Yikes, this was just yesterday and already I can't remember.  Anyway.  I also mixed up the soda ash.  I stuffed the wrap into the bottom of a big plastic tub a la LWI, and poured on the dyes.  I then waited a few minutes and poured the soda ash on top.  Once I had done this, I squished it around to make sure the dye penetrated the folds, but tried to keep it from entering the places I had applied resists.  I tipped out the excess dye/soda ash mixture (tip out the short edge of the tub to keep the dyes from muddying).  I covered with the box's lid and set in the yard for the duration of nap and a bit.  

LWI

 Then I rinsed out in the washing machine on cool just to get some of the dye out and then I untied.  My hands got very blue.  Then I washed on hot, but the glue just didn't seem to be coming out in spots.  I set it to soak in a tub of cool water til morning, then hot wash again.  Still glue.  I took it in the yard and tried to pressure spray the glue off.  No go.  So far the best thing has been just to scratch the glue out with my fingernails.  I hope it doesn't get too pilly.  Then it will be up for another hot wash just to be sure.  

closeup of resists

mostly finished

Ori Nui Shibori

Two halves to my 6 yds of linen.  Each were to become watery, but in different ways.  

For one half, I used a shibori method called ori nui to create a resist in the fabric.  Different combinations of the basic running stitch yielded different results in the end.  The parallel line of stitching actually came out the faintest.  The single line of stitching was the one I made meander most, and it came out clearly, but not particularly exciting.  The most interesting pattern was the one where I folded the fabric and stitched a running stitch about 1/2 inch from the fold, then also stitched a running stitch on the fold.  
I gathered it all up as tight as I could, dropped it in a very concentrated dyebath of cobalt blue, and let it dye for a few hours, then washed and washed and washed until the water ran clear.  Pulled the stitches out, and voila!

parallel stitching on left, center line of folded stitch on right

all gathered up

about to hit the tub

 

dyed, washed, and stitches removed

folded with center line of stitches

single running stitch