Tag: tenugui

bookmark_borderShibori Experiments

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Some members of the Fiber Arts Guild of the Debatable Lands have been practicing their fabric dyeing lately, but it is to big a production to make up large dye pots just to try some new things out. For that purpose we had a dyeing day at Mistress Tsvee’a’s House this past Sunday. We had a vat of indigo, a tub of dark red fiber-reactive dye, and a couple of burbling vats of natural dye.

I put one carefully prepared ball of fabric into the indigo. I had fan-folded a rectangle of cotton around a point in the middle of one long edge. Then I rolled the folded fabric into a ball and tied the edge with yarn.

Indigo-dyed Folded Shibori

I put another carefully prepared bll of fabric into the Turkey Red Procion dye. I had twisted it up around two separate points until the whorls met in the middle, then again tied them with yarn. I should have twisted tighter and tied a little lighter. Still, it’s interesting.

Procion-dyed Twisted Shibori

I also dyed some twisted up cotton yarn, but that description will have to wait until the braid is finished.

bookmark_borderBlock Printed Tenugui

Posted on by Elliott Evans

In discussion within Clan Yama Kaminari, we thought it would be nice to have some tenugui hand towels printed with the Clan mon. I already had the printing block cut, so It was only a couple days’ work to make two dozen of these.

Cotton hand towels printed with the mark of Clan Yama Kaminari

Each tenugui is a yard long and about 15 inches wide. I used cotton muslin because it was on sale at the fabric store. Typically, tenugui use a looser weave of cotton.

I did a rolled edge on each rectangle using the serger to keep them from fraying. Tenugui made with traditional fabric have selvedges at the proper width, and the ends are just left to fray. If I buy tenugui, I usually hem them myself.

The mon is block-printed at each end, centered in the width of the fabric, using Jacquard Textile Color in “Ruby Red”. This pigment yields a good solid color, without changing the texture the way paint would, or bleeding along the fibers the way dye would.