Shibori

Last Saturday at Seata we had a Shibori workshop with Rachel Anderson. She had provided all that we needed, apart from aprons. After a quick introduction, and showing us methods of tying, stitching, twisting and manipulating the fabric and some of her finished samples, we were keen to get started.

We each had three pieces of cotton and / or calico about 10″ square. I had brought 3 pairs of new (washed) cotton socks and a calico bag to do as well. Scattered around the tables there were pegs, garden wire and pieces of plastic to use as resists, and three Dylon dye baths to choose from: indigo, a paler blue and olive green.

I folded my first piece in half, half again, and half again, giving me a long thin segment which I stitched and pulled / gathered up about 1cm apart (4 rows?). We all attached a long piece of cotton string to our pieces, with our names on, to hang over the sides of the dye bath. My first piece went into the indigo. They were left for a couple of hours before being taken out and unwrapped, then left to dry while Rachel gave us a talk about her work. It turns out that she went to Hull College of Art and Design about 5 years after me! (I had quick chat with her at the end, to find she knew some of the tutors and technicians that I had.) We took the pieces home to wash out in hot water until the water ran clear. This is my first piece now it’s dry. It still needs ironing.

I folded this one diagonally across the middle, then pleated it backwards and forwards, like the fans we made as kids, before twisting garden wire around it and putting it into the olive green dye bath. The colour has come out quite soft on this one.

This one was folded randomly, and has more contrast between light and dark areas.

Then I twisted the socks, keeping them attached at the top to try to make them stay as a pair. Two went into the indigo, so I can do the double denim effect with my jeans!

And then one pair went into the olive dye bath.

Time was running out, so I just quickly folded and pegged the calico bag.

A few more minutes just to stitch another piece of cotton with a silhoutte of a tree, and gather up the stitches. It’s not worked well, the stitching wasn’t tight enough. It was tighter than how it looks now, with only half the stitching taken out, but it’s a good colour.

It was a good session, and so much better doing messy things when you don’t have to do all the clearing up on your own! Many hands made light work, and it was soon done. It’s also a better use of the dye baths, it did a lot of fabric all in all. Thank you, Rachel.

Castle colouring-in finished

I finished stitching the entrance section and added some detail to the sentry boxes, and then stitched the draw bridge in a variegated thread to mimic the planking effect. The chain was done in Quaker stitch with French knots at the top.

The door had some detail added. I did the little sign at the bottom in satin stitch, and added my initials logo. I do try to remember to sign my work.

I did the petals of the flowers in organza to make them a little more 3D……

……. with french knots in the centres. The stitching is all finished, but how to frame and mount it? I wasn’t happy with the fraying edges, but didn’t want to cut it out and lose the remaining black outline. I did want to use a matching white Ikea frame, like I used for my “Blue work castle.” A couple of weeks later I woke up with the idea of painting a background, not quite sure how it would work , but only one way to find out.

I marked the size of the frame on a fairly heavy watercolour paper, and traced the castle outline in pencil.

I really only intended to put in a sky, but added some tree shapes in indigo on either side.

When it was all completely dry, I carefully cut out on the pencil lines.

Then took the stitching off the frame…..

….. and laid the paper over the top.

I cut it to size, and laced the fabric over mount board before putting it in the frame.

I put the odd touch of glue on the paper between the turrets. It needs a few tiny tweaks before it’s ready to hang with its companion piece. There’s a huge contrast between the two pieces, the precision and detail of the traditional stitching and the naviety of the felted / colouring-in piece. They both bring back happy memories of visiting Neuschwanstein with our lovely German friends many years ago.

Continuing with the scrappy nine patch

Even though I just wanted to continue with this piece after Alex’s workshop, I really needed to finish off other things first (some of which I have managed to do). I took it along to “the move it on session” last week at S.E.A.T.A. (Scunthorpe Embroidery and Textile Association), and have continued with it this week between other projects.

I started by anchoring down some of the bullion knots on the limpet shell, with some matching sylko. That stopped them wriggling around so much! But once they were not moving all over the place, I realised I need lots more, so back to the Bella Donna viscose thread.

You can see how it quickly unravels, but the sheen gives just the effect I want.

The limpet shells are perfect to obscure things partially, which pulls you in to have a closer look. The two limpet shells were just the right size for one of the recycled jewellery spirals that Margaret gave me last month.

And another shell, over the printed fabric, looks as if you are seeing what’s inside if it didn’t have the top missing.

The little bead fishes got caught in the net.

A scrap of Angelina from some long forgotten project gave a little sparkle on the fleecy piece of fabric, before the shell was attached with some long stitches in perlé thread.

I’ve started to couch down the ends of the Prima Donna viscose thread from the “Pomatoceros” (a tube feeding annelid worm).

Most of the pieces are anchored down now, but time to assess what else to add.

Some long legged chain stitches represent the ropes on the fishing net.

A variegated thread is used to anchor down the shell that already had three holes in, and the fabric cascading through it.

Then a twisted cord in Madiera Metallic added another layer of sparkle. The dyed / painted piece of fabric has been ruffled up, and stitched down to look like patterns in sand.

A few beads are added in the folds of the tea dyed calico.

A satin stitch shell was added in perlé, and a few strands wrapped in gold coloured silk to give the effect of patterning on the shell. Some of the very unravelled Bella Donna from the “Pomatoceros” was plunged to the back and then brought up from the inside of the shell, and a few strands of perlé were unravelled to give some movement.

This is where it has got to so far. The difficulty is knowing when to stop. It’s lovely to work on and by far the most free thing I’ve worked on for a while: it’s good to respond to what’s there without having a preconceived idea of where it’s going.

Scrappy nine patch workshop

The workshop we had last Saturday at S.E.A.T.A. (Scunthorpe Embroidery and Textile Association) with Alex Hall flew by. Alex’s intention was for us to use different ways to attach found objects (like plastic rings) to fabric using a variety of stitched techniques.

I had already decided before I arrived that I was going off piste. I had some limpet shells that were almost rings that I wanted as my starting-point. This also influenced my choice of background fabric and my scraps, with a lovely piece of indigo batik / tie-dye that was just about the right size for a front and back. While looking for more limpet shells I found a plastic box full of seasidey bits and pieces gathered for a workshop with Nicky Dillerstone years ago: tea-dyed towelling and calico, blue velvet, a scrap of print in blue and cream spirals, textured synthetic (heat gun?), a strip of painted calico (sea and beach?).

With a little ripping and cutting, moving things around and assessing balance, I was ready to start anchoring down. The left hand side looks like sea and the right more beachy.

Looking through a jar of beads I found a little fish, which I thought was a bit twee, but then found several more. They are really tiny, kept in a spice jar lid. One has got away already.And there were exactly nine mixed in with beads and sequins etc.

Then I found this bit of net, and thought they could be caught in the net, with one or two escapees.

The shells below are ones I started painting at my painting class earlier in the week. Alex had informed me that the wonderful textures on the largest shell and the left foreground one, are “Pomatoceros” (what a lovely word!) – a tube-building annelid worm.

The central limpet shell was quite smooth, so I decided to add some “Pomatoceros” texture with bullion knots in the “Bella Donna” viscose thread that I’d vowed not to use again a few weeks ago!

At the moment they are wriggling all over the place and need anchoring to the shell with some matching sylko, but are giving the effect I’m aiming for. Even for bullion knots it’s horrible to work with, but it does slide on itself quite well.

Not much has been stitched down yet, and it will no doubt evolve from here as other things jump out at me, like using a limpet shell over the printed fabric to see the mollusc inside! One of the new members very kindly gave me the two silvery spirals, from a recycled piece of jewellery she’d found in a charity shop. Much to my shame, I can’t remember her name (sorry!), but I think she got my travelling book piece from last week.

I’m looking forward to getting back to it, once I’m up to date with the other things that have deadlines.