Shibori & Felt

The Online Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers are running a shibori workshop. The tutor is Rachel Hardy and the workshop exemplifies, I think, how good an Internet group like this is as we can all use what ever we want to and do it in our own pace. Rachel has a very free and easy experimental approach which I like and some fabulous pieces. She talks about the techniques and we use what fabric and dyes we wish. Rachel dyes with procion dyes on cottons as she makes quilts. I am using natural dye extracts and fine felt. Sadly for us ( and for Rachel) she has been laid low with a malevolent dose of 'flu and we are all hoping she will recover soon. So far we are only looking at folding clamping tying but there is enough in these techniques alone to keep us very busy. Originally I intended to use what ever I had -bits and pieces of fabrics and silks, but a few years ago I did some stitched shibori on fine felt and have wanted to do more of it ever since so I have succumbed to using felt -whatt a surprise- and now I have to make my fabric before I start dyeing with it. This takes time so I have only a few pieces. One of the stoles I took to summer school, which I sold too, was tied around 2p pieces and I loved the effect.

The top picture is tied around two p pieces with a thick hessian thread and dyed in jazz -an Earthues logwood-and annatto. The picture below is the other side

This piece above was wrapped around a piece of dowelling , tied with linen thread, and dipped many times into a fermented indigo vat. I then united, retied and dipped again
This piece above was tied with fine linen threads and dyed in annatto,jazz and green extracts being retied every time. below is the other side.


This piece above was dyed in indigo after tying around a spaghetti jar with thick hessian thread which was then pushed down till the felt was very crumpled.The above piece was part of the demo I did while giving a talk to the Abergele Guild of WSD ( you can see more of that here) was folded in half, rolled around a piece of dowelling , tied with linen thread, and then using pipettes, I dropped annatto, lac and brazilwood onto the felt.


So above are my first samples. All are on 18.5 micron merino except the last two which are on fine pieces of 16 micron merino.