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Archive for the ‘shibori’ Category

Shibori Scarf Workshop

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

scarvesdrying

I think you can consider yourself successful when your students do better work than you do!! Above are a few of the first round of dyeing.

Everyone had such a good time. I brought extra scarves and so everyone did a second and some whent for thirds.

Here is the one I did to show them how to. I used scarlet (which is really fuchsia and I added some black to it), green and black. After it was unwrapped, I spritzed it with some chartreuse.

gerriesamplr

Here is some student work during the first round. This is Lindsey from Bend, she is the sister of Katy who you will see later.

lindseytiger

lindseydetail

This is Forrest, my lone guy student. He was making gifts for family members. He did some beautiful work.

forrest

joanbuell1

Here are photos of the second and third rounds. You can see that they just got better and better.

orangearashiwrap

chartreusewrap

The reveal. When there is a lot of white showing, I had them add more dye with a brush or eye dropper. Kayla did a beautiful job on touching this up. I didn’t get an after photo.

kaylareveal

Painting with blue dye.

bluewrap

Adding some green.

geenonbluewrap

Love this – wish I had photographed the reveal.

lucsiouswrap

This was a chiffon scarf done by Katy. She used chartreuse and black with some dribbles of yellow.

chiffonwrap

Here is the reveal. It is really gorgeous.

katysscarf

Nice dye painting.

joans2wrap

The reveal of Joan’s second scarf. (That is Katy in the background.)

joan2reveal

Here is Lindsey again. This coral and black was stunning.

lindeycoralblack

This was loads of fun and very gratifying to see what my students could do. I think they are all going to order some dye and scarves and play at home.

I must get cleaned up and order pizza to take to the Barnes’ home for some Halloween fun with the M & M.

More Colorhue Dye Play

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

habotaitestpiece

This is a piece of habotai silk on which I did some test printing with stamps and an aspen leaf thermofax screen. You can click on it to see it larger. I then dyed it with some pumpkin and yellow.

I decided to use the aspen leaf for one of the scarves. I really wanted to use the citron green that I mixed up the other day, so I screened the leaves with red paint. That has to be one of my favorite color combinations.

citronredaspenleaves aspenleafdetail

While I was working on this scarf, I had a chiffon scarf that I was using to test colors. I had poured all the left over dye from the other day into a pot and painted the chiffon. It was a really cool blue/black which I though would look good with the citron. The texture of the chiffon made an interesting design as I pulled the foam brush over it. I really love this piece. I had some trouble photographing this. The color is not really true.

citrongreenchiffon citrondetail

I decided to do a test shibori on a habotai scarf that I bought for the workshop. I used rubber bands to wrap around the pvc pipe. I used blue, pumpkin and the citron. I like it.

3colorshibori 3colorshiboridetail

I am already feeling much better on my second day of treatment for the gastric inflammation. Thanks for all the well wishes.

My friend and fellow art quilter, Bonnie Bucknam, has started a blog. Right now, she is blogging about her project to make quilts for an orphanage that she visited in Guatemala on a trip with Nancy Crow. Check it out. She also sells beautiful hand-dyed fabric.

Playing with Colorhue Dyes

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

firstdyedrying

My bottles of Colorhue dye came with no instructions. I searched on the Internet and figured out that you need only a few drops of the dye concentrate in the water and so I forged ahead.

I had a sheet of plexiglas. I dripped some of my dye solution on the Plexiglas and then laid a piece of silk charmeuse over it. The Colorhue dyes strike instantly and do not spread very much.

dyedropsonplexiglass

The fabric in the middle in the top photo was the first piece that I did. The piece on the right was done with dry silk charmeuse and I added some black dribbles.

Next, I  folded a piece of silk charmeuse lengthwise and again the other direction, accordian style. I dipped it in 3 different colors – magenta, turquoise and pumpkin.

foldanddrip

It is the first fabric in the top photo. I was not happy with the bright fuchsia color and later, I fixed that.

But, first, I wanted to try some shibori. I wrapped a scarf on a pvc pole with cotton string.

polewrappedsilk

I put brown, pumpkin and turquoise in squeeze bottles and dripped the dye on the wrapped silk.

shiboricolorhuedyes

Here is the result of my first Colorhue shibori attempt. You can click on any image to see a larger photo.

1stshiboriattempt

Not, bad, but the brown is not brown, it is purple. And there is a lot of white space. I let it dry a bit and brought it back into the dye studio and just poured turquoise dye over it to fill in the white areas. Here is the final scarf which I took in to church today as a class sample and got 3 more sign-ups. It really is very lovely.

finalshiboriscarf

Here is the back story on the brown. Ginny Eckley who sells the dyes told me that the brown is a very red brown and to add green and yellow to it to get a better brown, so I will try that next time.

So, I am finished and I have left over dye and dye in the bucket that dripped from the shibori dyeing. What would you do? I threw all the dye into the bucket and immersed the previously dyed pieces.

overdyedsilk

moreoverdyedsilk

I grabbed a couple of scarves that were previously dyed – one with acid dyes and one with indigo and rust.

oldshiboriscarf indigorustdye1 rustdyedshibori2

I threw them into the dye soup with this result.

finaloverdye3

I like how the dye toned down the orange and green,

rustdyefinal rustdyefinal2

On this scarf, the dye gave a richer color to the scarf. The original scarf did not get a very strong indigo dye.

Then, I noticed that I had not put the black into the dye soup. Dumped it in and added the original 3 samples which now look like this.

finaloverdye

finaloverdye2

This is so much fun with instant gratification.  Next, I want to try Lumiere and Neopaque paint prints with over dyeing, bubble wrap, and fabric tied around a rope.

Last night, Mr C took me out for a fabulous dinner. Tonight we have Scooter school. It was canceled last week because the trainer was sick. Tomorrow, for my birthday, I am going to the dentist in the morning and then to theology class in the evening.

Thank you to every one who is e-mailing and sending greetings. I love my virtual friends.

A Green Flash of Inspiration

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

purpleorangeshibori

I love this purple and orange shibori and have wanted to use it in a piece. I started auditioning possible fabrics to go with it – different purples and oranges and a piece that I had painted. Believe it or not, that piece on the left is very purple.

shiboriandpaintedfabric

I decided I needed another color for a pop so I went to my color wheel to see what a triadic color scheme would add. I was so excited to see that it was one of my favorite colors – lime green!

triadcolorscheme

I immediately got the idea of an ocean sunset with the green flash that you hear about, just as the sun dips beneath the horizon.

Now we are getting somewhere. I went to Art Media yesterday to get canvas to stretch some work over and picked up some metallic copper paint and some pearl violet. I decided to over paint that other piece of fabric so that it would look like water with the reflection of the sunset. The colors on this are not quite true, but you get the idea. I really like it.

metallicpaintedfabric

Here is another audition of fabrics.

purpleorangegreenaudition

I wasn’t happy with that pure orange as the orange in the shibori is more reddish. So here is another audition.

finaltriadaudition

Ahh! I like this and I like the shimmering of the silk green and orange. I have actually drawn a sketch and done some chalk lines for cutting the shibori.

Yesterday was our 45th anniversary. We had a lovely dinner at Paley’s Place in downtown Portland. They knew it was a special day and treated us royally!

Sadly, we have come to the conclusion that it is time to let our beloved Maggie go. I talked to the vet on Friday and she helped me realize that we are not doing her a favor by waiting until she is even more sick. We decided to spend the week-end with her and will take her in on Tuesday and say our good-bye.

maggiecloseup

On a much happier note, I am picking up Laura Cater-Woods tomorrow at the airport. She is spending the next 5 days doing workshops and a lecture for Columbia Fiberarts Guild. I am so excited to meet her in person and spend some quality time with her.

Good News and More Good News

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

aspenplacement

The good news is that I feel as if I am getting back into a creative groove and feeling more confident about what I am doing. I was really stymied and about how to do the aspens. I cut some paper pieces to try out some options. I got brave and started cutting from my shibori stash, using some linen, first. It just was not working. I got on the computer and googled aspens and just looked at photos of how aspens appear in the natural landscape. Very often, you just see a stand of them sort of in a row and I decided that was what I needed to do, but abstracted. After several trials, I am quite happy with this. I haven’t stitched them yet. They are lightly fused. I ended up using a silk charmeuse shibori piece because there was more contrast in the markings. I was a little worried about the value change in this piece, but was pleasantly surprised when I changed it to black and white.

aspensblackandwhite

The other good news is that I saw my oncologist today for my annual visit. He says I am fine and do not need to come back unless I want to. He is such a fine man that I might go back just to visit with him. We always find lots to talk about.

M and M arrived after lunch to spend the day. We didn’t do much. Miles watched Muppets in Space. Mia kept me company in my studio and played with Scooter. Tonight, we headed over to the Farmer’s Market to shop and have dinner. They didn’t see anything that appealed to them so we went to the never fail Stickers Asian restaurant down the street.

potstickers

Here is Miles enjoying a sticker. Mia loved the new vinyl lime green and gold flecked upholstery on the booths!!

mileswithsticker

We walked back to the Farmer’s Market to do some shopping and the kids enjoyed gourmet ice cream sandwiches.

miabigsmile

I call this photo Doing the man walk in tandem.

manwalking

Mmmm! Brought home berries to eat and freeze.

oregonberries

Tonight, I found the two munchkins staring with intense interest as they watched Mythbusters, one of their favorite shows.

scarystare

Tomorrow is a play day with STASH at Terry’s house. I have my supplies all packed. We are going to do sun printing and maybe some monoprints. I will take my camera.