shibori

Shibori is the Japanese word for a variety of ways of embellishing textiles by shaping cloth and securing it before dyeing. The word comes from the verb root shiboru, "to wring, squeeze, press."

I love dying fabric. This is a love that came from my days studying textiles at college. I loved diving my hands into pots procion dyes and turning fabric (and my hands) into glorious shades of blues and green (because I never did a project at college which didn't involve those two college except my tree bark one, but even then the colour brown seemed so wonderful). I love dying my own clothes back to original shades or even more exciting colours. I just love dying fabric. 

Shibori is basically very similar to tie-dye, but it is much more complex, and uses indigo dye which is where you get the bright blue prints we know, and it is also the colour that more often than not is used to colour our jeans. However indigo dye is very tricky to use. If you can pick up a kit that is perfect, if not just find a jeans colour dye. Important - it has to be hand dye, it will not work if it machine wash dye, also its a lot less fun!

Start by securing your clothe. I used calico because its a natural clothe that I love. Its not pure white and is really durable and its also natural. 

But more importantly than following how I made the fabric bundles - EXPERIEMENT. Don't just do what I do, be inspired yourself, try tying it in different ways, or using other fabrics or if your feeling really brave then try dying an old white tee-shirt (I dip dyed two white tops while doing this)
Do follow the instructions on the packet though for mixing up your dye and drop them into your bucket of dye.

 Guess which technique I used to get all of these outcomes. I am so pleased with all the them and seeing them makes me really excited to try and do them on some clothes or on a much larger scale to make clothes out of! 

Also in this batch of dye I did some DIY batik. Super easy. Melt some wax. I took the wicks out of three tea light candles and melted them down in a double boiler. Then I draw a pattern on some clothe and went over it painting the wax into it. The outcome was stunning although I'm still not sure how to get the wax off or even if I want too really...

Last thing I promise - as aforementioned I dip dyed two white tee-shirts. They started off well and then when I pulled them out the dye it dripped all down them into places I didn't want to be dyed. I freaked out for a minute, till I had a brain wave to paint on bleach to reverse the dye. Because it was still wet the dye it came off really easy and you wouldn't even know where the spots were. So excited to wear them even if it is just to the gym (which P.S. I've started going twice a week to pilates class and I'm loving it so much).