Anytime I have something plain white lying around, I know it won’t last that way very long, so I like to do some shibori dying to create something beautiful before it gets ruined! Shibori is a Japanese relief dying technique using indigo dye and then string, wood blocks, or any other objects or clips around the house. Learn more about the shibori tradition here.
Supplies:
- Blue/indigo dye
- String, rubber bands, wood blocks, cardboard, clips, small objects, etc.
- Linen, cotton, silk, or hemp fabric
- 5 Gallon Bucket
- Tongs, rubber gloves, or some way to get items out of bucket
Ideas for items to dye:
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Step 1: Make your shibori reliefs
What inspired this project was finding a white cotton shower curtain and bathmat in a closet, so I picked up some linen napkins and had my sister come over with some more napkins and a shirt. Between the two of us we tried all sorts of reliefs.
1. Triangle or square relief: Itajime
We did a lot of triangle reliefs, some with cardboard, and one with clips. The method is to accordion fold your fabric so that the edges of each fold is visible. Where the fabric is visible is where the dye will reach, so for a triangular pattern, you then flag fold the fabric, or accordion fold with triangles.
For a square pattern you would just accordion fold your fabric a second time instead of flag folding.
Then for each relief, you will need to bind the folds by putting a wood block as per tradition, or we merely cut out cardboard shapes and wrapped it in twine or rubber bands. I also used kitchen clips on one napkin as well.
Image of all bound reliefs at the end of this section.
2. Bind around small objects: Ne-maki
For this technique traditionally you would get marbles or some small object and then bind the fabric around it, repeatedly across the fabric. I did a twist on this by accordion folding my fabric a couple times first to have a repeated pattern of the rings and I used wine corks since that was what I had lying around.
3. Wrapped around a pole: Arashi (means storm)
My sister and I did two different variations of this. For both, the idea is to wrap fabric around a pole, wrap twine around it and then bunch it up together. I accordion folded my fabric before wrapping so that the storm lines would alternate in direction, and my sister did it the more traditional way of wrapping the fabric with no previous folds.
4. However you feel like it!
You can really fold, bind, or put any objects with this technique and experiment! I did one napkin of my own design by accordion folding it one way and then wrapping it around a few wine corks in varying directions before binding it all together. Get creative! Look around your house and see if anything inspires you!
Step 2: Put the shibori reliefs in the dye!
To use my RIT dye, I followed the instructions on the box by boiling a big pot of water, dumping it in my 5 gallon container, adding a cup of salt and the dye, and then using a hose to fill the rest of the bucket.
Then I dumped in all our fabric except the poles and let it sit for about 20 minutes. My sister left her triangle napkins a little longer, maybe 25 minutes, and they did turn out darker and with more contrast.
For the pole reliefs, I put mine in for about 15 minutes and should have left it longer, my sister did about 20 minutes for her shirt.
Step 3: Let them dry
We put our fabric in another 5 gallon bucket so the dye wouldn’t get everywhere. We left our creations outside for about 24 hours still bound to let the dye set and dry more before unbinding. Then I unbound and unfolded for them to dry more for about another 24 hours before washing them in our washing machine.
They did lose a lot of color in the washing machine, but it gave them a soft blue pattern that still has its charm.
Check out more DIY’s to updo your house here!