Monday, October 18, 2010

Shibori Technique

Sunday I taught two very creative ladies to do shibori dying on silk. The class didn't fill through the local Allied Arts, so I taught it in my studio. We had such fun!
Here is how we did it:
1. We used silk satin scarves about 8" x 54" .
2. We wound them around a dowel:




3. We put on gloves to keep from dying our hands, and placed the scarf and dowel in a pie pan to catch drips.






4. Using eye droppers, we dripped dye onto the silk, holding the dropper in place to let the dye soak in.





5. Once the dye covers the silk, we let it set to soak in throughly .









6. We can't wait until it dries on the dowel (takes days!) to see what it looks like, so we carefully unrolled the silk and hung it up to dry. TaDa!!


7. The next step is to steam them. That will be next week when the class meets.

6 comments:

  1. Gorgeous colours, and so good to see the process!
    Beth

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  2. I'm new to all this so just what are you using for dye? thanks

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    1. I use red label Jaquard dyes for most of my work. I love the way the dyes spread--like painting wet on wet with water colors. These need steaming (see my post http://www.suzannaleigh.net/2016/03/steaming-silk-dyes-at-home.html ). Green label Jaquard dyes can be set with a chemical.
      Sometimes I use color hue dyes, which don't need steaming, but which don't saturate the silk as well through folds.
      I also like to use natural dyes. One of my favorites is made with onion skins and very easy.

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  3. Do you dye those silks when they are dry or wet ?

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  4. Dry. The silk satin is so lovely and shiny it looks wet in the photos.

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