During the Edo era in Japan, the Tokaido road leading from Kyoto and Osaka to the capital Edo was the nation’s main highway. Near the city of Nagoya a village called Arimatsu grew astride the…

I have been loving everything indigo these days so when I saw an instagram from Tara of Sonoma Cottage I knew I had to know more about DIY Shibori!

Do your own Simplified Shibori Dyeing with these instructions, 4 different patterns are an easy introduction to shibori dyeing using fibre reactive dye.

Three days - three shibori scarves. Click on any of the images to enlarge. Minnesota is known for many things: rivers and lakes, bl...

A round up of the 5 most popular stitched shibori techniques to inspire and guide you on your shibori journey.

At the Japanese Folkcraft Museum you can buy four books of postcards featuring the work of the shibori /indigo master Motohiko Katano. Motohiko Katano (1889-1975), a painter turned dyer, created a body of sublime shibori work using indigo and other natural dyes. Guided by Soetsu Yanagi and Kanjiro Kawai, leaders of the mingei (“folk craft”) movement, Katano recognized the beauty of the humble yet high spirited art of Arimatsu-Narumi shibori and, from 1957 to his death, set out to revive these traditions. Many of his techniques were inspired by shibori craft traditions from the area where he lived, in Nagoya. One such process, now popularly called “katano shibori,” produces a repeating pattern across the width of the cloth in variegated colors, white lines, and areas resembling soft airbrushed tinting. His work leaves an indelible mark on contemporary shibori art, and his legacy is being continued by his daughter, Kaori Katano. Motohiko Katano: Motohiko Katano. They are often out on the work table/ dining table for us to figure out how he made them. Truus and Mini and Ogata san and I have worked on this one recently. Truus went back to the Netherlands and I didn't get a picture of her beautiful piece. After it is stitched and pulled it is bound to a flexible rope core and the white parts are resisted with kite string and cloth and saran wrap. Mini is exhausted after all the prep work. She hit the indigo vat the second the last place was wrapped and tied. Mini-like clean lines and a clean melody appeared when it was opened. It is interesting to see his ingenuity and precision in trying to copy these works. As the techniques are picked up over years my students can tweak them and find their own shape-resist voice. I don't push the students to do something never done before. Copy and refine the master works and your own will come in time. Ogata sans was a tad bolder. This is another technique Ogata san and I worked on recently. (Amanda mastered it last year.) A simple paper cut out stencil was repeated with the aobana ink and then stitched up, pulled and dyed in the indigo ten times. On Lithuanian linen. Yet another two techniques from these cards: I suggest anyone interested in Shibori find these and work away. They are the best resource material I have ever seen on shibori. Why look at the textbook stuff? Look at the Leonardo stuff.

If you don't want to mess around with indigo dyes, bleaching denim is an easy way to achieve a faux shibori look.

Batik boyama yapımı eskiden çok moda idi. Şimdilerde yapan var mı pek bilmiyorum. Mutlaka yapan vardır. Benim gibi seven arkadaşlar vardır diye

Find out what is shibori. Examples of stitched shibori to inspire. A brief history and how the technique may be used in decorating everyday items.

Searching for dyeing materials started as soon as we took off on our Easter holiday trip. We had a long drive to get to DS and his family. We enjoyed the drive and regularly make this trip to visit them. We made a few stops on our way. At each stop I would be looking for something I can use for dyeing. I gathered some autumn leaves at each stop. After an overnight stay at DS we all took off together to Kioloa Beach, South Coast of NSW. The Kioloa Beach Cottage is only 3 minutes walk from the beautiful sandy beach where we had a few swims. On one of the bush walks at Bowley Point I collected some Spotted gum bark and some lichen for dyeing. My DIL and the two year old DGD were my assistants in searching for dyeing material. Everything is for Lady Yahya (that's me) said DGD...! At the cottage I set up a dye station using the table on the back patio. I took my dye pot with me from home. The bark is brewing in rain water. The silk was soaking overnight in sea water. Sea water acts as mordant. I had steamed the first batch the night before. You can see them in zip-lock bag on the table. I bundled up silk with a variety of plants like Eucalyptus leaves, sea weed, lichen, pin oak leaves and liquid amber leaves. I brewed them in a spotted gum dye bath for 45 minutes and then left it over night before unwrapping. These are the bundles that I steamed the first day we got there. I stored them in zip-lock bags and left them out in the sun for a day before unwrapping. You can see the imprints of the Eucalyptus leaves showing through in some of the bundles. Here they are revealed in all their glorious colour in all shades and designs. DIL and I had so much fun unwrapping them. We were supposed to leave them for another day, but with both DGC asleep the short amount of free time was too good to miss! The closed up photos of the Eucalyptus leaves imprints on silk. Aren't they gorgeous? Almost good enough to eat...! Another dye I did was Shibori dyed. I wanted to try the lichen I gathered from a fallen log I picked up on our walk. I didn't know anything about lichen, but DIL told me she remembers her mother used to dye yarns with lichen. Instead of putting plain silk in the dye bath I decided to do stitched Shibori (Kamasu) to the silk before I dyed it. I used wood ash as mordant for this piece. I found wood ash in the wood BBQ in the yard. I filled up a jar to bring some home as well. You can see the Shibori pieces snugged in with the lichen over the stove. The colour shows up after a few minutes of boiling. I was so excited to see the bright orange given out by the lichen. We were due to leave later that day, and I should have really left it for at least overnight before unwrapping it. I transferred the whole content of the dye bath into a zip-lock bag and took it back with us. We couldn't wait until the next day when we unwrapped them that evening. The results are as you see in the above and below photos. This piece was DIL's. She wanted to try the shibori technique. This one was quite easy. I just drew half a circle on the folded fabric, stitched and tied it. It is called Karamatsu Shibori. Another Shibori piece showing a pattern that I accidentally discovered how to make. It was late at night and I wanted to get all the silk that had been soaked in sea water overnight into the dye pot. I wanted to give the pattern some texture, so I fan folded the fabric lengthwise and folded it into triangles. I roughly tied two long ends of the triangles with elastic bands and the result is as you see above. This piece was dyed in the bark bath.

1. Finished resist-dyed samples. On November 8, I took a one-day workshop, called True Blue, with Elin Noble, as part of A Quilter's Gathering 2010. We used freeze-dried, pre-reduced, indigo to dye samples of shaped-resist techniques. I had taken one previous dyeing class with another excellent teacher, Carol Anne Grotrian, so had a basic introduction to some of the techniques. 2. Kumo, or spiderweb, pattern. Nine inch squares of fabric tied with nylon kite twine. 3. Left, fabric sample with rubber bands around dried beans. Right, dyed fabric. I prepared a few samples in advance at home, using Prepared For Dyeing (PFD) fabric made by Kaufman, and a variety of household objects. In addition to learning about preparing an indigo dye vat, of course, I also learned some new shibori patterns in the workshop and picked up useful tips. 4. Our class sampler. Left, top and bottom, maki-nui pattern, chevron stripes. Right, top, mokume or wood-grain pattern. Right, bottom, karamatsu or larch tree pattern. For all the stitching, we used synthetic upholstery thread, which Elin supplied in big cones, and which worked much better than the buttonhole thread I used for some of my home-made samples. To stitch, I used a Roxanne brand basting needle. The thread is worked doubled, knotted at the beginning of a row, and at the end of the row a tail of two to three inches is left, for cinching up when all the stitching is done. Here's how-to: 5. Mokume pattern. For the mokume pattern, draw parallel lines 1/4" apart. I like to use my 304 Berol drawing pencil with the soft lead. With the needle, make big running stitches. To get the wavy look, avoid aligning stitches vertically - the stitches should be offset, like bricks. 6. Maki-nui pattern. 7. Maki nui pattern. It would have been better if I'd gathered up a beefier hunk of fabric with every stitch. My pattern came out even, but too subtle. At least this pic shows the basic stitch pattern. For the maki-nui pattern, the cloth is folded. Along the fold, and through both layers, insert the needle. Bring the point of needle back over the fold, wrapping the fold with the thread. Insert the needle again through both layers and wrap again. It doesn't matter if you wrap clock-wise or counter-clock wise, just be consistent. Elin loads up her needle with as many stitches as possible, allowing the stitches to fall off the eye end of the needle. I think this is to maintain a consistent rhythm when stitching, for a more regular pattern. 8. Larch pattern. Finally, for the larch pattern, the third pattern of our sampler, we fold the fabric and draw three concentric circles to stitch. Starting with the bottom circle, the stitches are made through the two layers of fabric. Threads are carried between motifs; no need to tie off for every pattern. This pattern can also be modified to be a more diamond shape; just stitch angles instead of circles. 9. My dyed sampler. From the top, the patterns are: mokume pattern, maki nui (too timidly stitched) and the circular larch pattern on the bottom. Elin gave us a helpful hand-out with diagrams for these patterns; Yoshiko Wada's book Shibori The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing also has good illustrated instructions. 10. A cone of upholstery thread. After stitching is complete, the threads are pulled taut and tied off using a square knot (surgeon's knot, whatever, just make sure it's secure, but tidy). When pulling the threads taut, Elin works on the piece as a whole, pulling all threads partially taut first. Spraying with water helps the fabric fold and compress. When all threads have been cinched up part way, she pulls them as tight as possible and ties them off. For items with many, many threads, Elin will sometimes count the threads, so she can make sure she's pulled them all, as a loose thread will ruin the pattern. Also, for heavily stitched patterns, such as mokume, where there may be hundreds of thread ends, she'll tie the threads in bundles of four, just to save a bit of time. Finally, after tying off Elin does not snip close to the knot, but leaves at least two to three inches of thread dangling, for ease when it's time to remove the stitching after dyeing is complete. 11. One of my stitched patterns. Left, stitched but not cinched and knotted. Right, thread pulled tight and tied off. 12. A professional sample from Japan, densely stitched and knotted. 13. Classmate Lois, with her excellent sampler of patterns. When all our fabric samples were stitched, cinched and knotted, we prepared our indigo vats and dyed the cloth. The samples emerged and were very impressive. For more on the vat, see the companion blog entry The Vat. Of course, it was impossible to resist opening up our samplers and seeing the results. Elin mentioned that she often begins her patterning a bit away from the edge, as she finds the marginal zones - between the pattern and the edge of the fabric - often have visually interesting outcomes. This is often true of life, isn't it? Some of the most intriguing things go on in the margins, if you're observant enough to see them. 14. Samples made by, or collected by, Elin Noble. For inspiration, Elin had kindly brought many samples to class, of her own work but also pieces she has collected from both Asia and Africa. Because there are often needle holes, and even bits of thread remaining, is it possible to do forensic stitching analysis and determine how the pattern was made. As stitched patterns are only part of the repertoire - and the stitching process is relatively tedious - Elin also shared other techniques with us, including pole wrapping and clamping. 15. Elin initially ties the upholstery thread to the pole. Many of us, including me, had brought PVC pipe, used for plumbing, to the class. During lunch, I had wrapped a long strip of fabric around my 2 1/2" diameter pole diagonally, wrapped it with thread and bunched the fabric down to the end of the pole, as I learned in my previous shibori class. I thought I was ahead of the game. However, after lunch Elin shared with us more of the characteristics that differentiate this indigo dye from synthetic MX dyes. Evidently, the indigo doesn't penetrate the layers as well as the synthetic dyes. Now she tells me! The solution is evident - wrap only one layer of fabric and use a wide diameter pole. 16. Fading away - the indigo did not penetrate to the inner layers of the wide fabric wrapped around a skinny pole. I like it anyway. Elin also does not like to use tape for securing the fabric to the pole, as it may lead to adhesive residue build-up. (She might like to try drafting tape, which has a higher quality adhesive meant to minimize residue.) Rather, she ties the thread to the pole, then wraps the thread around the fabric. After wrapping three to four inches, she cinches the fabric down to the end of the pole. Additional variation can be introduced by twisting the fabric as you bunch it down. 17. Elin has wrapped a single layer of fabric around her pole, tied thread to the pole and is wrapping the thread around the fabric. 18. Wedging the pipe between the table edge and her abdomen, Elin pushes the thread-wrapped fabric down to the end of the pipe. Elin recommends using lengths of pipe no longer than 30-36". This allows the average height dyer to use the table edge and her body as a vise while scrunching the fabric down to the edge of the pipe. 19. Elin twists the fabrics while bunching it. 20. Fabric is wrapped and scrunched. Thread is tied off. When the length of fabric is thread-wrapped and pushed down to the end of the pole, Elin makes a big knotted loop of thread and uses that loop as a second thread end, allowing her to tie off the thread with another secure square knot. The fabric is soaked thoroughly in clear water, and then is ready for the dye vat. 21. Elin shared with us some of her samples of pole dyeing. (Sorry about the blurred face - no flash means slow shutter speed.) 22. Students hard at work, preparing and dyeing poles. 23. Up to our elbows in indigo. 24. Left, fan-folding fabric. Center, clamping using chopsticks and rubber bands. Right, my fabric, made by folding and clamping with jar lids and C-clamps. In addition to pole wrapping, another relatively quick way to make pattern on fabric is by clamping. The dye penetrates the edges, but not the area under pressure from the clamp. Elin showed us her technique for fan folding, which is to work on the edge of a table and manipulate the folded portion of the fabric, not the trailing end of the fabric. Much easier. After fan-folding, she folded the fabric in fourths, like the letter M (see photo above) and clamped the bundle with chopsticks and rubber bands. Simple, but effective. One last technique we learned was how to make a sort of small butterfly motif, but I didn't have time to make and dye one, unfortunately. Will have to try in another class! A note on photography. I do not use flash, because I think it's rude to subject people to flash photography in a classroom setting. In addition, most of my fellow students, and I, are women of a certain age, and recovery from flash glare is slower for us. I don't want anyone knocking over a dye bath because she was momentarily blinded by glare from my camera. So, I rely only on available light, with the accompanying slow shutter speeds. Not ideal, but the goal is images that provide a helpful visual record of the process.

Passo-a-passo: http://honestlywtf.com/diy/shibori-diy

Printing onto fabric is one of our specialties here at Handprinted. We like to come up with easy ways in which fabric can be printed in a small space at home with minimal mess and equipment. One such way we have been playing with recently is printing using a square piece of lino. From …

Bōshi shibori: una tecnica di riserva complessa, che regala risultati affascinanti su crepe de chine °°° su maglia ...

Another simple shibori tie is ne-maki. For this you need something roundish - marbles, pebbles, ... As with kumo, I like to do this tie with artificial sinew. The waxy coating helps keep the thread tight, and you want tight thread so it acts as a resist and keeps the indigo from touching that part of the cloth. First, cover a marble with your cloth and pinch the fabric underneath it. Wrap the artificial sinew very, very tightly just underneath the marble. Really pull hard! You can either tie a knot and trim the ends .... ... or you can go to the next marble without tying, wrap it tightly, go to the next marble, etc. ... ... and then tie the end when you finish the final marble. Some fabric holds the waxed artificial sinew well even without knots - this makes it much, much easier (and quicker) to remove the sinew after dying. Some fabric, like silk, doesn't seem to hold it well for me, so I end up tying each marble in separately. And cutting each marble's sinew off separately! When I use pebbles, I tie each one off separately. They don't seem to hold otherwise. Here's the finished sampler ready to dye ... hmmm. Looks like someone's cat has been sleeping on my photo background again! And just out of the dye vat. I let most of the dye drain off in a pan and then take the sinew off so air can get to all parts of the cloth. The circles on the bottom are from the marbles and those on top are from the pebbles. It's fun to combine methods! You might've noticed that my sample piece dyed a little lighter and greyer than normal. And you might think that means the indigo is being used up - probably not at this point. When this happens it might mean you need to refresh the vat with more reducing agents. This is what my indigo vat currently looks like. Not good! Normally I check this each time before I dye, but I got lazy this time since I was just dying a sample. The blue-green color tells me it's time for more reducer. I added a tablespoon more thiox and 1 1/2 tablespoons of soda ash (dissolve the soda ash in a little water first), stirred it up, covered it, and came back in a couple of hours. Now my vat is more of the yellow-green I want to see. It actually could be a little more yellow. That means using a little more of the thiox and soda ash - and I'll do that before I dye my next pieces. I was also busy this week making matching shibori shirts for little c and me - yes, I am a very dorky Nana! See this previous post for beginning indigo dying. Happy Creating! Deborah

Muriel drops by Japan a few times a year to do research on Japanese textiles. She drops by and stays a few days now and then to use the indigo, drop off some Swiss cheese and chocolate. I get to see her meticulous shibori work and progress. White shadow shibori is one of the difficult shape resist techniques. It is tough to get the balance of the shapes and sizes right so the indigo does not bleed in from behind and ruin the perfect white background. She got it perfect on her last masterpiece. First the pattern was drawn on the cotton and then painstakingly stitched and stitched. (Muriel has done some haute couture embroidery in France and knows what slow progress is all about.) She used a q-tip to push through all the white parts to the backside. It is then tightly bound to a pipe/pole to resist the back and let only the raised ridges dye. It is easy to see how long the oxidation of the indigo takes on the first dip as the green is so visible. By the tenth dip you can't see the green turn to blue and have to estimate how long it takes. Taken off the pipe the back was white! The moment when it comes to open it up. Washed and dried. Perfect results. Here are a few more pieces from Muriel this year. She is searching out indigo in remote corners of Japan and ran across this indigo hottie. He was surprised to see her beautiful work. (Hurray Gaijin!)