Chapter 6 - Further Experiments

 I was very disappointed by my Shibori results. The dye had seeped underneath stitching and threads, and, at best, the colour was a dark blue rather than black. I re-read Sian's instructions, and decided to give it one more try. This time I used Dylon cold water dye.

2058 was wrapped tightly with string, dipped in dye, and microwaved for 4 mins. I am really happy with the depth of black and the resulting pattern!

 

2059 was stitched in pin-tucks, gathered tightly, dipped in dye and microwaved. I think the stitching was probably too small to enable me to pull the gathers suffuciently tight enough, but even so, it gave a pleasing result.

2060 was stitched in random circles which were gathered tightly and microwave dyed. I think perhaps that the very dark areas were created where the dye powder hadn't quite disolved properly, so creating a concentration of black dye.

2061 was hand stitched in zig zag formation. Gathered tightly, then painted gently on top of the gathers with black dylon dye.

2062. Arashi Shibori, around a plastic drain pipe. Again painted very gently with dye, making sure that the fabric is not saturated with dye,

Moral of my story. A lot of time can be saved by reading Sian's instructions properly before embarking upon an exercise!

Chapter 6 - Patterning of Fabrics Using Cold Water Dyes and Fabric Paints

2041    A collection of black and white patterned fabrics

 

SHIBORI METHODS USING DYES

I mixed 10g of black dye to 10ml water to ensure a strong density of black dye.

The results from my first attempt at dyeing were not very dark. For my second attempt I pre-soaked the fabric with soda ash which gave much better results.
I dyed a dozen pieces of fabric plain black for a later exercise. I left this in a bag with dye, salt and soda ash for 12 hours. The resulting black was much more successful, however, whenI left my shibori in the dye for longer than half an hour, the dye seeped beneath my thread and coloured the entire fabric. Even though my fingers were sore after gathering the threads as tightly as I could, I still don't think they were tight enough!
After four attempts, I feel I have some reasonably satisfactory results but will experiment again when I have more time.

2042 was rolled and wrapped tightly with string, then dipped into dye.

2043 was rolled into a tube, and wrapped tightly with string in just 3 places.

2044 was scrunched up into a tight ball and wrapped tightly with string.

2045 was folded into triangles and held tightly with pegs, then dipped into dye.

2046 was folded into a rectangle, then held together with pegs and dipped in dye.

TRITICK SHIBORI

2047 was folded into wavy 'pin tucks', hand stitched with upholstry thread, gathered tightly and dipped into dye.

2048 was gathered tightly in straight lines and dipped into dye.

I was disappointed with both of the above. The stitches did not create much of a resist. Perhaps the stitches were too small, so I was not able to gather them tightly enough.

ARASHI SHIBORI

2049 was wrapped around a section of plastic drainpipe, wrapped tightly with string which was then pushed together to 'ruche' the fabric. This was then painted with black dye.

MONOPRINTING

I applied Jacquard textile paint to a sheet of perspex and created patterns using plastic card and colour shapers. The stronger images on the left are the first prints, whilst the 'second prints' on the right are more faded.

2050 was created with a plastic store card with a series of 'teeth' cut into it.

2051 was created by twisting the edge of a strip of cardboard.

2052 was a cross-hatch of lies made with the edge of a plastic store card.

2053 was created by a colour shaper used in a dioagonal stabbing motion.

2054. In one of her books, Ruth Issett suggests dropping lines of paint onto a perpex sheet and pressing another one tightly against it. When pulled apart, the paint forms a delicate 'feathered' effect, which can be monoprinted as above.

SCREEN PRINTING

2056 and 2057 are printed through torn paper stencils.

2057 is printed through a supermarket fruit net, and gives a lovely snakeskin effect.

Chapter 5 - Making Patterned Papers

Ink Marks

These patterns were all made with a cardboard applicator. I was able to recreate an effect of observed animal makings quite easily: 2029 giving the appearance of a zebra pattern, 2030: snake, or lizard skin, 2031: porkupine, and 2032: octopus.

I love the faded effect that appears as the ink runs out during application. The graduated tones could be achieved by graduating the density of stitch, or thickness of thread as in the blackwork stitching samples, either by hand or machine.

Bleach Marks

The side of a plastic card, applying bleach in an arc motion created a lovely feather effect in 2034. 'Hairy' textured wool dagged bleach across the page in different directions on 2035 gave the cracked appearance of elephant skin. A tin foil pastry case, crumpled and stamped into bleach gave the attractive mottled effect of leopard skin.

I love the luminous quality of the 'bleached-out' tissue paper. It would be interesting to explore ways of reproducing this effect in stitch. Perhaps heavy black stitching into a transparent of translucent material, or even stitching onto disolveable stabilizer to create a lace effect.

Monoprints

2037 resembles a porkupine like pattern. I used acrylic paint for this design, but the paint dried out so quickly, I had to clean everything off before doing any more. For the other monoprints, I decided to use a waterbased screen printing ink. This was easier to use and stayed workable for longer. I found the edge of a plastic card was best for making marks. Some softer materials did not make very defined marks, and so were obliterated when transfering the design to paper. I used a 'colour shaper' for the marks on 2037.

Chapter 4 - Drawing Patterns from Animal Markings

By enlarging a section of an image, I was able to view the animal markings in abstract format.

I sketched and traced the pattern to develop a stylized version, and used various computer graphic filters to convert patterns into simplified black and white images, and reversed the picture into 'negative' view to achieve a different viewpoint.