Something About Nothing

Today I taught a three hour class at  Art Access  in downtown Salt Lake City.   The classroom can be accessed through this beautiful walkway. I think I would love to live here.   All set up and ready for the students to arrive! All 13 students went home with a beautiful Shibori Silk scarf ready to wear.  I love making these scarves!

I'm making samples for my Shibori Scarf Dyeing class coming up this fall at Art Access . This first scarf was created with folding and tying (Itajime and Miura). The dyes were mixed last July.   They still worked but were no where near as saturated as freshly mixed dyes. The other scarf sample was created using Maki-nui - oversewn stitching. The stitch creates a resist that resembles little chevrons. I used a combination of Indigo Blue and Orange Sherbet dye, which mixed to create lots of lovely browns and greens in addition to the blue and orange.  I think it is a perfect fall color combination. The stitching of the entire scarf took a lot longer than we will have in class but it will be a nice option for future reference. The class will be held on October 15th from 1 to 4 p.m. Call 801-328-0703 to sign up.

I bought some rayon scarves while I was Dharma Trading in December.  I decided to try out some Shibori on it.  I tied up my button collection every which way.  And then added a lot of diluted setacolor paint and set it all out in the bright winter sun.  The day was bright and beautiful but there was still a lot of moisture in the air so it didn't dry as quickly as it usually does. I brought it inside and put it under a lamp to finish "cooking" in the "sun" then after removing all the buttons gave it a good ironing to set the paint.  You can see a little bit of where the buttons were. The shibori effect isn't as noticeable as I would have liked but it is still a pretty scarf.  My daughter saw the scarf with the buttons in it and immediately wanted the scarf WITH all the buttons in it.  It would have been a heavy scarf but it was pretty.  Perhaps I need to find something lighter to wrap up in the scarf to get the same effect wit...

And since the dyes were out and the soda ash mixed I decided it was time to dye some cotton scarves I picked up at Dharma Trading while in their neighborhood in December.  I decided to dye them a "solid" color and I like how they have turned out! Imperial Purple: Coral Pink:  I really like the texture of this scarf! Remind me to buy this blank again. Orange Sherbert:  I have a few rayon and silk scarves to dye next but I'm not sure if I will stay monochromatic or go multicolor.  What do you think? I'm linking up to "Off the Wall Fridays" with this post. I hope you hop on over and have a look at the other beauties in progress.

While my two youngest were off to young women's camp I spent some time dyeing fabrics and playing with surface design.  Two years ago I bought a handwoven cotton scarf from Dharma Trading . I finally decided I would dye it using an ice dyeing method.  I used Navy Blue, Better Black and Imperial Purple Dyes. I wasn't sure if I would get the same explosions of color I usually get when ice dyeing but I knew that if I didn't like what I got I would dye it all over with black! I think it turned out beautiful. I really need a better photo of the full sized scarf!  I'm in the middle of a custody battle for the scarf with my youngest daughter. While I get my lawyer in to settle the case, the one thing I do know is that. . . A) I should have tried this sooner and B) I have to buy more of these scarves! What colors should I try next?