Coming Soon!

Over the winter my neighbor made a Little Free Library for our block and it's going to be installed in front of my house in just two weeks!  The post went in last week, so I just have to finish painting and put the final touches on it.  So exciting!   

Indigo and Shibori

I took an indigo and shibori class at the Textile Center on Saturday with a new friend (yay!).  I neglected to take any process shots or any before and after shots, so you're just left with the finished product.

I had a bunch of old, stained embroidered linens.  I keep calling them doilies, but I don't think they are doilies.

This one is my favorite.  I like that the indigo did not penetrate the embroidery.  Before I washed it in the washing machine, it was really dark with the blue.

 This one is lame.  I don't know why I even bothered with it.  I had a stain on it, so I thought I would dye it, but meh.

 I like this long butterfly linen, but when I washed it some holes appeared.  I think I need to cut it up somehow and make it into something else.

The instructor provided canvas bags for all of us to work on.  I used some clamps on mine and it came out like this:

I had a giant t-shirt leftover from that inkodye project that I did a number of years back, so I dug through my craft abyss the morning of the class and brought it along.  I wrapped it with twine and scrunched it on a pole using the arashi (storm) technique.  This is the front:

 This is the back:

I'm thinking about cutting it up into a dress for Z.  It's really long and she's into long dresses lately.

I had a yard of fabric and didn't get to dip it into the indigo for very long and I hastily tied it into knots before I dipped it.  

It's still very white. 

Anyway, I really enjoyed the class and the instructor (her stuff is here).  Will I set up my own vat of indigo?  Hmmm...I'm not sure.  There was a lot involved and the indigo was like a living, breathing thing and I wouldn't want to murder it.