New Year's Blues!

Well, the first workshop for 2016 is here and gone.  My students brought their thinking caps and tried many new techniques.  Some revived past work and tried to improve it.  Some tried making wearable garments from up-cycled goods, and some just tried to create new patterns in fabric that will be used for quilts and other goods.

Whatever they did, they did with gusto!  They gave the class their all and the end results were wonderful.  I would like to share a few of them with you.

Not satisfied with her first attempt at Arashi Shibori, Marilyn Hines decided to re-wrap and dye again but in reverse.  This lovely piece is the result of her creative thinking.

Another Arashi Shibori piece re-wrapped and dyed in reverse.  Marilyn managed to create some wonderful desin play with the light and dark patterns.

Another Arashi piece that Marilyn was not happy with, but instead of reverse wrapping and dyeing, she over dyed the piece with the dye extract from wild cherry leaves.

This piece was a lovely light indigo color with designs from twisting and dyeing that Marilyn was not satisfied with.  She decided to over dye the whole piece in wild cherry  leaf extract and achieved a lovely green with the original patterns still visible.  Unfortunately, my photo was unable to catch all of its beauty.

This unique design by Maggie Clark was a tour de force of Shibori techniques.  Believe it or not this piece has folding and clamping,  Hickory nuts tied into the fabric,  twisting and tying the fabric and finally pole wrapping.  I like the end result!

The vintage linen piece by Linda Johnson is just wonderful.  She decided to treat the lace edges like regular fabric and twist and tie the fabric before dyeing..  Nice result, Linda!

Another vintage linen and lace piece by Linda Johnson.  This is a combination of clamped wooden strips and twisting the fabric before dyeing.  The combination of solid fabric and Battenberg lace edgings show her design skills very well.

Indigo, vintage linens and antique farm equipment, great combination!

More indigo and vintage Battenberg lace on table linen.

Maggie Clark did a marvelous job with the folding and clamping on this blouse.  There are eyelet and embroidery designs on the fabric that are perfect with the indigo pattern.

Folding and clamping with non-uniform folds along with twisting the fabric before clamping helped to create this lovely piece by Linda Johnson

Another multi technique piece.

Very interesting wrap and tie piece with multiple dips in the vat by Amy Grief..  So delicate looking.

This sleeveless blouse by Linda Johnson is a combination of twisting and tying.  Linda had to leave before I could take a better photo of this, but perhaps I can re-post another photo later.

Marilyn Hines is getting pretty good with the clay paste resist and quilt stencils.  She has just completed a lovely quilt using only natural dyed and printed fabrics from our classes.  I will post a photo of the quilt a little later on.

I am goong to post more photos from this workshop, but they are more in the style of a photo essay of the Arashi Shibori technique.  Amy Grief assisted me with a step by step photo shoot, and it is worthy of its own post.  For those who have never tried Arashi Shibori (or Pole Wrapping) I hope the post is of some benefit to you and you feel encouraged to try it.