shibori silk

Firstly I dyed this piece of silk in a 'space-dye' way; then I stitched it, shibori-style and added a blue, and grey/black procian dye. The fabric has retained the pleats of the stitching, giving it a look of shirring, often spotted on small girls clothes in the 1950's!
Today we've been transfer-printing in my textiles class; and I made a collography plate which I could use for this purpose. It's worked really well. I'm very pleased with it. I've come home and ironed a transfer print onto a piece of fabric I pole-dyed last week. That piece is evolving; and I now know what I'm going to do with it to complete it. 
I've painted some transfer paint onto a sheet of paper, and will iron onto the fabric. Then I've dug out some nylon rope threads, and I'm going to stitch them onto the piece. It feels such a shift, to be able to plan what I'm going to do. At least one of the 8 sample pieces is underway now. 

Dyeing - Shibori

I folded cotton, and stitched pleats, pulling them tight before dropping the fabric into black procion dye.

The dye wasn't fresh, so it faded to this attractive grey hue.

I'd use this technique again. I like the results.

Felt 4

A piece of shibori felt I made for my City & Guilds course....now, thankfully completed!
The coursework has been finished, and portfolio handed in. I'm using the final session to make a piece of felt that is just for me! I made the first section last week; tomorrow I'll make the second section. Then it will be a case of adding embellishments and joining the two pieces together. I can do that at my leisure.

the 21st century

Jon and I have moved into the 21st century and gone onto.....broadband!
Already things are working faster; but the downside is, we've realised that the pooter is slow. So putting 1+1 together, we've realised there must be a bug in it. It needs a visit to the pooter-doc, so will be going off there soon.

In the meantime; I've been using up the dye I brought home from the textile course I did earlier this year. Dyed a couple of hankies I bought from a charity shop, and the Shibori piece I'd been doing for months (!). The colour is very pale, and really quite surprising. They are drying as I write. They'll make an interesting addition to my growing textile collection.

I've also been doing some hand embroidery on the Labyrinth textile piece (above) I began a few weeks ago. That's looking nice, though still got work to do on it.