Easy Shibori

Our last afternoon at the beach, we worked on Shibori using paint instead of dyes.  It's an easy way to achieve a really interesting affect. It's also a good way to rework your not so great fabrics. 

 We had some large pieces of PVC pipe which work better for wrapping fabric as you can avoid overlapping or repositioning.

 Kate gave me a beautiful piece of fabric she had made it using tea bags. I was hesitant to do anything with it;  it was so interesting in and of itself.

So I approached this piece with a light touch.  I used a heavy twine to wrap around - about 1 1/2" apart and knotted it at the top. I didn't wrap too tightly as that would make it difficult to scrunch up which was the next step.

 Mary used a piece of her wool which was a little harder to work with as it was heavier.

 But she was able to scrunch it for the next step.

 Kate used a piece of marbled fabric she wanted to rework and used rubber bands to wrap around instead of string.

 I had another piece of dyed fabric from years ago, now in Kates stash which she generously gave back to me - tied and ready to scrunch.

 We used a textile paint - Setacolor in both opaque and metallics

 and applied the paint using thin foam brushes. I tried to grab just the very top edge to have a thinner line. I also wanted the effect of trees.

 This was a piece Kate didn't like which turned out absolutely wonderful after doing the Shibori.

 It's now a garden and I can see a whole cloth art piece being done here.

  I think Mary might have had the winning piece...I don't remember how she did this except she used a foam brush and 2 different paints including a metallic. It turned out great.

 Both my pieces turned out to look like trees and I was really pleased with the results.

 It was really a fun and easy technique and great for working wonders for your "misfit fabric".

And of course our last evening - a beautiful sunset...the view at the end of the dock...
What a great way to try new techniques.