bookmark_borderShibori Clothing

A few of us did some shibori dyeing in the garage recently. The last time we hosted this, one of our friends brought a bunch of white cotton clothing she had found at the store. After that, I made some shirts from cotton muslin so I’d be ready for the next time we did dyeing. That was like two years ago, but better late than never. Here is the ensemble of both shirts.

The brown shirt kind of looks like an accident in a bleach factory, but the pattern is much more interesting in person. I used my famous pajama pattern, and even rememebered to do the top stitching in cotton thread so it would pick up the dye, After laundering, I opened the button holes and sewed on some buttons.

The blue long-sleeve tee shirt looks a little more tie-dye traditional. I basically scrunched the shirt up sideways and then put a bunch of rubber bands down it to hold it together. I like that it came out symmetrical and smiley. There were actually two different kinds of blue in the dye bath, but I think the “peacock” blue really took precedence.

bookmark_borderTie-Dye T-Shirts

A few weeks ago, we visited some of the sweetie’s relatives, and she did a big batch of tie-dyeing as an activity with the nephews. We tried out all kinds of different techniques from the Dharma tie-dyeing guide and made a huge mess. Here are the two that I made for myself.

My Favorite

For this one, I crumple-pleated it along the vertical axis, then bound it up using rubber bands. Then, I squirted dye all over each horizontal band with the squeeze bottle. These are heavy-weight 100% cotton shirts, so the dye took really well. I really like how the crumples continue across the bands, and I like how organic the shapes are.

The Other One

This one is nice enough, I suppose, but I just don’t think I got enough dye in it.

bookmark_borderPlain Cotton Shirts for Dyeing

At the most recent dyeing activity, one of our friends brought a few articles of finished clothing that she’d purchased inexpensively, specifically for the fun of shibori dyeing it in indigo. When you make up a couple of big pots of indigo dye, you might as well use them for as much as you can. They really don’t keep, and there’s so much dye in there that you can normally toss in some experiments at the end just to see how they come out.

Her experiments came out so awesome that I decided to copy her method. The online stores that sell the dye also carry a broad line of prepared for dyeing (PFD) garments, but I hate buying clothes mail order. I have plenty of simple sewing patterns, though.

Cotton Shirts for Dyeing

I used white muslin fabric to make two shirts. One uses a sweatshirt pattern, and the other uses the beloved pajama top pattern. No buttons on the pajama top yet, because they would only interfere with the dye. I finished all the cut edges with serging, but did all the top stitching with cotton thread. The cotton thread will take up dye, but the polyester serging will not. The serging is all hidden inside, though.

Somebody is running a dyeing day next month, so now I am ready for fun.

bookmark_borderIndigo Shibori Silk Kosode

A few weeks ago, Sharon hosted an indigo dyeing activity at our home. Some people came over and we spent all day dunking fabric in dye pots. I did some small test pieces for various techniques, but I also twisted up some big pieces of silk broadcloth, and then I made this kosode from that fabric.

It looks kind of like an accident in a bleach factory, but closer up the indigo patterns are very organic and Rorshach-inkblot fascinating.