I’ve been practicing shibori techniques a lot since the pandemic landed in the states. It has been the only way to direct my focus away from anxious thoughts since social distancing and safer-at-home guidelines have utterly suspended the rhythm of life. Without the drumbeat of a regular schedule, I have floated between the fabric folds and patterns, the exploration of colors and palettes.
Shibori bandana variations
In the last two and a half months, I have started this post more than a dozen times only to abandon it mid-way for lack of any ability to focus my thoughts. Despite the practical need to stay present and navigate this strange new world, I have hunkered down in my craft bunker with my dyes and textiles.
Bandana stack
I’ve been meaning to start a new craft video about my favorite shibori folds, or creative ways to wear bandanas, or even finish the one I started about sewing masks…but I just keep getting sucked into another color cocktail.
Half-bandana shibori patterns
Maybe my definition of practical productivity can be adjusted for the times.
Maybe I’ll call this my research period. I have achieved more consistent vibrancy in my colors and found new resist methods to create cool patterns. That’s something, anyway. And maybe I’ll make a video to demonstrate this new discoveries.
I take a scarf made of buttery bamboo fabric, fold it accordion-style, secure with popsicle sticks, and then dye it.
Grape Double Bamboo Scarf, shibori/tie-dye
The resulting pattern is evocative of bamboo stalks.
Tutti Frutti Double Bamboo Scarf, shibori/tie-dye
I get such a rush when I unbind these scarfs after dying. The bamboo fabric is light but sturdy enough to easily fold and tie for shibori. And it takes the fiber reactive dye so beautifully.
I’m crafting like a madwoman to stock up on these over on my Etsy store, because I think they would make lovely holiday gifts. Last year, I sold out of my Shibori Tea Towels the week before Christmas, but maybe these will be the runaway hit this year.
(Psst…if you want to get a head start on your holiday shopping, enjoy free shipping on any Scarlet Darter Etsy order of $35 or more now through November 20th.
Use the code FREEFALLSHIP at checkout for standard shipping within the US.)
With my constant nattering on about shibori experiments, you might not know I have other crafty interests. Oh, but I do. Before tie-dye, before sewing, before knitting even…first came crochet. My first diy love. It’s easy, it’s quick, it’s ….mostly it’s easy.
So every now and again, I have to put down the tie-dye and satisfy the crochet craving.
Recently, I finished one of those back-burner projects – something I had been meaning to try for years but just never put at the top of the list.
I tore into an old bedsheet to see if I could crochet up a bath mat or something cute. Oh…and I dyed it a little. Because I can’t help myself.
I tried following a couple of different tutorials that promised I could cut the sheet in such a fancy way as to make one long continuous strip, but that was a terrible lie. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth and cursing of gods, I ended up just cutting through the chaos. I was left with some long strips and some shorter strips and I had to tuck and weave ends into the project.
I did not have enough patience to crochet and tuck and weave my way to a bath mat. I gave up at about trivet size.
There are some projects that really satisfy that craft itch – even when they come with challenges and/or unexpected results. This was not one of those projects.
If I could figure out how to cut a sheet into one long strip, I would probably make some more trivets and bath mats and such. But as it stands, I don’t really want to put myself through it again any time soon.
The next time I jones for some crochet goodness, I’ll just do it the old fashioned way. With yarn.
Just finished up some fresh Flour Sack Towels tie-dyed in spring colors!
This batch differs from the other Shibori dyed Tea Towels that I have made/and sold for months. In the past, had sourced some pre-hemmed towels of good, consistant quality that I could dye “as-is” – that is, without having to sew up cotton towels myself. But then I found a new source and these were offered at a REALLY good price online. When they arrived at my studio I found out why they were so much cheaper than the ones I have been getting. These new, cheap “Flour Sack” weight cotton towels are much lighter in weight than the “Tea Towel” weight ones. Ruh-roh.
Truth be told, they are actually great quality for what they are – they just aren’t what I thought they would be. Some bargains come with a cost, it seems.
So I learned a little lesson in frugality, but I learned a little more about Shibori tie-dye craft as well. You see, the different weights of cotton fold differently and soak up dye differently. The lighter weight of the “Flour Sack” style allowed for easier folding of the Spiral pattern and the Mandala pattern than the heavier – and stiffer – Tea Towel weight. However, the sturdier “Tea Towel” weight lends itself much better to the more structured Diamond and Web folds, the finished product has a much crisper line than those of the “Flour Sack” weight.
Pink Shibori dyed Tea Towel
Ah well! Always happy to add to the vault of crafty knowledge!
By the way, the batch of “Flour Sack” Tie-Dyed Tea Towels is headed to Minnesota for the St Paul Art Crawl, April 27th – 29th 2018. My work (the tie-dyed Towels, Baby Onesies and other hand-dyed accessories) appear as part of a collective showing at the Crawl @ Carleton Artist Lofts. If you need a little art and/inspiration in your life (who doesn’t??!) and you live near the Twin Cities, do the Crawl!
I have been Shibori-ing up a storm – not just because it’s my new favorite crafty technique, but because I couldn’t keep the products in my Etsy store! (Ahem, #humblebrag.)
Purple + Lavender Shibori dyed Tea Towel set
I’m not complaining, though.
After an experimental phase (documented in part in this post) through the spring and summer, I learned some really cool folding patterns that dyed up beautifully. Unfortunately, the finished results wouldn’t work for what I had planned. You see, I had been looking for ways to make my own unique cotton fabric for the cotton pouches I sell at BohoQuest, but the shibori patterns were too big. They wouldn’t translate into the small drawstring bags.
Then I had the brainstorm that the large geometric patterns might work on something else. Something that could hold – nay, that required a bigger pattern. Something home decor-y.
Tea Towels?
Et voila:
Pink Shibori dyed Tea Towel
Shibori Hexagram pattern
Octagon Shibori pattern on a Tea Towel
And that dovetails nicely with the running theme of my blog – that unexpected results can lead to unexpected victories! Sometimes you just have to let go of your plan and embrace the journey your craft has for you.
Every where you turn, little cacti are showing up on reception tables, home stores, in commercials and marketing photography…(guilty!). You don’t have to live in the desert to be barraged with the little buggers. Last weekend, I left a theatre fundraiser with a couple of good sized succulents. Used as table centerpieces, I couldn’t believe my luck that a pinkish one lasted through clean-up. I got to take it home, along with another green little orphan.
I just love the way color comes through succulents. The teals and pinks and greens are so unique and specific to desert flora. I don’t have any dye powders that match the subtle hues, but I was still inspired by them as I indulged in my weekly dye session.
I tied a cotton baby tee shirt and a cotton jersey baby onesie with the classic sunburst style and experimented with procion dyes. The pinkish mottled effect was acheived with ice-dying while the rest of the colors were dipped or squirted on. I didn’t acheive quite the same colors as the potted inspiration, but I’m still very pleased with the results. (Both are now listed over at my etsy store: BlitheStarBaby, btw).
As a natural ginger, I know a thing or two about freckles. They come with the territory. Redheadedness + freckles are a bundled plan. Freckles are to be accepted, but controlled. So, over the years I’ve gotten much better about sunscreen and hats. You learn to prevent loud spots, and accept the little sprinkles.
I have not yet acheived the same mastery of freckles on my hand-dyed fabrics.
Behold:
Dye freckles on fabric.
Not cute.
The “freckles” are remnants of unincorporated flecks of dye. I don’t know if “freckles” is a technical term? Maybe I read it somewhere, but it might be something I made up. (I’m leaning towards the latter.)
As regards this abomination of a green muslin, I was experimenting with a variation on ice-dying in a container. The results were informative, in that part of the experiment worked. The part where I mixed up with powder with water first, in the bottom of the jar. That resulted in an “okay” mottled green in some parts of the muslin. It’s not exactly the kind of variegation I was hoping for, but I can see how I can tweak the technique to get a prettier result. I’m going to keep experimenting with container dyeing.
That’s green dye in that upcycled pasta jar.
But then I lost my head and added another technique on top and ruined the whole thing. I got greedy and put ice and more powdered dye on the top of the container. That was definitely a “here’s what not to do” lesson. I should have known better anyways, because greens are always tempermental when it comes to ice-dyeing cotton fabric with a procion dye. I should have left it to one experiemental technique at a time.
I do love ice-dyeing – it’s a relatively easy technique and the whirly-swirly results can be so luscious. But there is an art to finding the right colors, spreading the powdered dyes effectively on the ice, and using the right ratio of ice to powdered dye. It seems that the more component colors a dye has, the less lovely the ice-dyed results are. I’ve noticed it with greens and blacks especially, teals and violets fall into this category – any color that is a blend of other colors runs a risk of “breaking bad”. (That might be another of my unique, totally made-up, not technical terms.) The mixed colors sometimes separate completely and don’t blend at all – like the yellow and blue streaks on the green sample. The yellow and blue did not melt or blend, and just kind of sit loudly in opposition of each other. When ice-dyeing works well it’s because the colors fall in and out of each other, blending and swirling, waxing and waning.
Cute freckles in ice-dyed fabric.
For example, in the mermaid-y swirls above you can see some little blue and magenta freckles. Those probably came from the purple powdered dye blend. But it’s not ugly. The colors are pretty closely related to the rest of it, so I think it still works. In fact, I made some Tarot bags and Meditation mats for my Etsy store BohoQuest with this very fabric, and one of the mats sold almost immediately after listing.
Mermaid/Unicorn swirls are popular at the moment, and ice-dyeing cotton fabric with pinks and purples and teals is a great way to achieve that effect. Not that I can stick with what’s trending. I’m actually rarely “on fleek”, as the kids say. (Do the kids even say that anymore? I don’t even really know what it means. Forget I said it.)
Color variations in my Ice-dyed fabrics.
Anyway, I stumbled on the Mermaid thing by accident, as I was trying new color variations. Some dyes are stubborn and just don’t seem to ice-dye well. Some dyes seem to take to the technique beautifully, and sometimes it seems like maybe the right color combination can make or break a pretty swirl.
Maybe it’s not to everyone’s taste, but I like a little chaos. I like a good vibrant swirl. That’s the beauty – and pretty much the point – of ice-dyeing.
Fiery freckles – more dangerous.
In the fiery example above, there are blue freckles that are a bit more…aggressive? I don’t hate it. However, it is a combo that might sit in my stash for a while before the “right” project comes along.
But that green muslin sample? No bueno. Not a working composition.
That’s a nope.
The freckles are too stand-offish, too different and elemental. They just don’t go with the rest of from the mossy green. No swirl, no heart – just freckles and stains. I’ll try to cut around the freckles and use the mossy muslin to make green herbal sachets for my other etsy store (ScarletDarter), but most – if not all – of that experiment is going in the trash.
By the way, if you check out ScarletDarter on Etsy, you’ll notice the Store banner is made from an image of ice-dyed fabric.
Of course my logo features ice-dyed fabric.
That variation was ice-dyed with Marigold and Peony Pink – two colors that are pretty close to their primary origins. I used little powered dye and LOTS of ice. The pink did throw off some blue freckles because the Peony dye is a blue-y pink. But because there is a white background, I used a teeny bit of bleach on the blue spots to clean it up without spoiling the swirly effect.
Oh ice-dying. How I love the technique, but hate the freckles. Just like with gingers and their spots, I’m still working out how to make ice-dyed freckles work for me.
In my last post, I hinted at my obessession with bees.
I also threatened crafts inspired by a frolic in the California poppies.
Well, here’s proof I’m a woman of my word:
Baby bee T.
This baby tee was ombre dyed to a rich marigold with fiber reactive dye, then washed & dried gently. It also needed an ironing to be a good canvas for ink stamping. I stamp baby clothes with ink instead of painting on them. Flaky or puffy fabric paints on baby stuff just makes me anxious.
Isn’t that little bee the cutest? It’s my favorite block stamp – today, anyway. Tomorrow, I might be all about the hummingbird action. For now though, I’m really into little bees. This little bee.
But come bee-stamping time, I find that my black ink pad was totally dried out. Whoopsies. I had dyed a bunch of fabric and stuff yellow to go bee-stamping wild, only to be foiled by an old pad. Serves me right, I guess. I kind of took old blackie for granted.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from finishing this project. I had the crafting bug, pun intended, and I had to see it through. While perusing my ink stash, I was drawn to this awesome elderberry ink pad – really dark reddish purple. I gave that a go, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s for sure better than black. It doesn’t really look very purple against the yellow, it’s just more…vivacious than straight black would have been. And that vibe really echoes the intense wildflowers at the preserve the other day.
I’m rather pleased with the silk dyeing experiments.
Yellow and Pink Silk scarf.
I was concerned about the color-fastness of fiber reactive dyes on silk, so I tried a couple of different dying methods. On the yellow and pink scarf, I used vinegar as a presoak and steamed for about a half an hour after applying the dye. Then I let the scarf cure (zipped up in a baggie to retain the moisture) for about 12 hours before washing it out.
Yellow and pink silk scarf, close-up
The colors are not exactly pastel, but they are light. The same concentration of the fiber reactive hues showed up more vibrantly on cotton dyed at the same time. But the silk has a lovely sheen so while it’s not as bright as I expected, it’s a nice – if subtle – result.
Black, purple and blue Silk scarf.
For the bluesy scarf, I quickly dipped the silk in a soda ash presoak solution. I used the same solution as I do for cotton dyeing, but for far less time – just dunked it for less than a minute. I dyed the scarf and cured it for about 14 hours before washing (there was no steaming step in this experiment).
It’s hard to tell in the photos, but it seems to me that the in first method – vinegar & steaming – the scarf retained that magical silky luminescence better. But in the second method – with soda ash – the silk absorbed more dye. Of course, the difference in depth & sheen could be in the colors chosen. Admittedly, I was not adhereing to experimental principles by switching up the colorways between the two efforts.
Silk scarves dyed with fiber reactive dyes.
Next time, I am going to try the vinegar & steaming method on the cool colors to see if that silky reflectiveness is a property of the colors or the process.
