Creativity, Life, Inspiration, and Design: Shibori

Monday, September 28, 2015

Shibori Technique #2

Technique Two: Fold, Clamp, and Dye

The second workshop I took at the Kyoto Shibori Museum involved techniques of folding, clamping, and dyeing. Again, this is a resist-type of dyeing. The folding of the fabric allows for a repeat pattern to emerge in the final piece. Clamping wooden shapes onto the folded cloth prevents the dye from penetrating the areas underneath the wood. One needs to use wood pieces(as opposed to plastic, etc.

Samples of Fold, Clamp, and Dye

), as the wood will expand a little when wet, which makes it press even tighter to the cloth.

We began the workshop by looking at samples of finished scarves. Ryo-san pointed out that the shape on the label of each sample indicated the wooden shape used, and it was obvious to see the two colors of dye that would become the base.

Two methods of folding were introduced: a back and forth linear fan-fold, and a triangular type of fan-fold. It is important to have as much surface area of the fabric exposed for dyeing, and this is why a fan-fold (or accordion fold) is used.

Beginning to fold the scarf

Once the scarf is folded, you then choose the shapes you want to employ and clamp them down tightly onto the cloth. You need two of each shape, and you sandwich the cloth between the pieces of wood.

Clamps and Wood Shapes

Sandwiching the folded silk between two wood shapes

Another view of clamping

Once all is clamped in place, it is off to the dye bath for the first color. We soaked the fabric in cold water first and then moved it to the hot dye bath. Once we had the depth of color we wanted, then we rinsed the fabric (while still clamped), and then back at the work station, carefully removed the clamps. Without unfolding the cloth, we then sandwiched and clamped down a second set of wooden shapes. I could see that the more one does this, the easier it is to understand what shapes will produce what repeat.

Prepping for the second set of dyeing

Back to the dye room, for the second color. In my case, I used blue in the first dyeing session. I then applied orange in the second dyeing, with the result of creating purple when over-dyeing occurred. Here is a list of how colors would occur on the scarf.

Blue – from the first dyeing in non-clamped areas.
Orange – from the second dyeing in areas that were clamped the first time, but not the second.
Purple – in areas where overdyeing of blue over orange occurred.
White – in areas which were clamped by shapes of wood, both times, and thus received no dye.

After the second dye bath, but before the grand unfolding

My finished piece

Again, there was this marvelous moment, when you unveiled the finished result. Ryo-san held one end of the folded (but now unclamped) cloth, and I held the other end. We counted to three and unfolded the piece. Magic!!

I can see that the more one works with this, the more you can foresee what you will get with different Shibori techniques. So, I intend to practice this more when I get back home, and document my steps and therefore my understanding. I’m hooked!!

Kyoto Shibori Museum

127 Shikiamicho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8261, Kyoto Prefecture

+81 75-221-4252

http://shiborijp.wix.com/kyoto-shibori-museum

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Shibori Workshop in Kyoto

This past week, I spent a morning taking a Shibori workshop at the Kyoto Museum of Shibori. This museum has excellent exhibits about the process of Shibori, as well as many mind boggling examples in the form of kimono, wall hangings, and samples. If you are a textile artist, I highly recommend a visit here.

Samples of Shibori Art

Shibori is a dyeing technique that is practiced around the world. It has many forms, and of course, the name changes from region to region. Basically, it is a type of resist-dyeing, where part of the fabric is either bound or clamped in order to prevent the dye from penetrating. There are many ways to achieve the ‘resist’ process. You will find resist dyeing in Indonesia, Africa, India, etc.

Japan calls this type of resist dyeing Shibori. It dates back 1300 plus years. Kyoto is a important center for Shibori, and here it is known as Kyo-Kanoko-Shibori. The

techniques are varied, and have been passed down from generation to generation. In Kyoto, silk was the primary fabric used, and the resultant fabrics traditionally would be used by the men, women, and children of samurai. In the Edo period, high-class shibori was created on silk in Kyoto and the ordinary-class indigo shibori was created with cottons and linens in the country areas.

Our instructor was Ryo Shimada. He is Japanese, but speaks perfect English, with an Australian accent (quite amusing to me). Ryo was fantastic. He was informative, helpful and patient. I'll discuss one technique in this blog post, and another technique is a separate blog post.

Technique One: Stitch and Dye

The first technique we covered involved stitching into the silk cloth with strong cotton thread. I believe this technique is called Kasamaki. We began by choosing a pattern we liked from the example wall. For the sake of time, all the stitching process had already been completed on our scarf, so we simply focused on the drawing-in of the threads to create the resist areas of the cloth. Here you can see a sample of the pattern I chose to do, and the threads that were already stitched with either a single strand or a double strand of cotton.

The ‘flowers’ of my design were created with single strand thread. My task was to use a stand tool to hold the knots of the ends of thread and allow me to get good tension while tightening the thread first (which outlined the flower), and then binding the projection (which would create the striations of the ‘flower petals’.

Below, you can see how the 'protrusion' of fabric was wrapped tightly, letting the wooden stand device aid in the process.

Wrapping the protruding fabric

The results

The second stitch technique (which I’ve seen called Nui), involved using a double-strand running stitch, and drawing the threads ‘tight’. Little pieces of cotton at each end, protected the fabric later, when it came time to pull the thread out (acting like washers). Some of these were done for me (in advance), and some I pulled and tightened myself.

Once prepped, the pieces went into the dye bath. Synthetic dyes were used, and these were heated and ready for us when we got to the de studio. After the dyeing, we spun out the excel moisture and then waited for the pieces to dry.

Into the dye bath (love the stirring sticks)

To remove the running stitches, one simply pulled the fabric with the palms of your hands to break the threads. To remove the threads from the ‘projections’ we snipped the end knot and undid the threads with our fingers. Then came the magic moment when two people pulled the scarf from the opposite end, and let it ‘bloom’. Wow! Too much fun!!