A New Twist on Shibori

One thing I love about shibori techniques is that they tend to keep evolving. Wrapping cloth around a pole to create designs is a relatively new technique. It was developed in the late 1800's in Japan, and brought to the United States 100 years later by Yoshiko Wada. In Japan a de-barked tree trunk was used, the US adaptation called for plastic plumbing pipe. Many people do not realize there are several ways to wrap the cloth. Many different fiber artist's imagination was fired up with this technique and they are still exploring the possibilities. Judith Content, returning home after a workshop only found an empty wine bottle to work with and found it worked beautifully. Sue Bleiweiss made a video about her technique and posted it on You Tube. This is a much quicker way to get the fabric on the tube and get down to the fun bit - the coloring of the cloth. Sue uses paints for her pieces, but I decided to try it with MX Procion dyes. Here are pictures of the two scarves I made. I think they look great and I plan to make a few more this summer, playing with the technique as I go along. The effect is more subtle than traditional arashi shibori, but is an avenue worth exploring.

Sue Bleiweiss Silk Shibori Demo
Sue Bleiweiss demonstrates her favorite method for painting silk. Note: I know that the volume is a bit low on this video and I hope to correct that by using a portable mike when I shoot the next video.

Cool video!