More shibori

Do Not Laugh! OK, so here's the scoop..a few weeks ago I did some shibori in red...making leaves, etc. Well, one of the 'leaves' looked like a bug! You may have to click on the picture to see his antennae..it looks like a bug to me...so I cut out the 'bug' and then cut one of the larger fat leaves in half and gave him wings!

Here's my 'shibori bug'! It's my Art of Nature journal (8 1/2" x 11") for Sept. Not sure what kind of bug it is but it is a bug to me! Although, he almost looks like a fish now that I see it at a distance! I added beading and put him on a black/white background. I have to get used to the camera and using different settings to get the colors correctly. Guess I need to go to my daughter and ask for advice in the photography area! She's the expert in that field.

Here's a close up of the beading...I think he's cute..and I even gave him two eyes! You stopped laughing, right!

My next shibori work was stitching a sample piece so I could try Sue Cavanaugh's technique of using thickened dye rather then immersion dyeing for shibori. I started off with this commerical fabric which was a very loose weave..my first mistake. I stitched it up then...mixed up some print paste; added dye concentrate (per Ann Johnson's formula) and spooned dye on my stitched piece. I was using black dye by the way.

Here is the stitched piece after I rinsed out the the dye...looks blueish here but it actually turned out....next picture, please!

Like this! Go figure! No white for me to try thickened colored dye on! Hmmmmmmm I think in part the loose weave may have had some impact on the process....I wanted to try this out before I dyed my large shibori piece I'm stitching. I think I'll just stick with immersion dyeing then if there is any white left (which there should be!) I 'might', just 'might' use the thickened color dyes on some of the white areas. I'm just not sure but I don't want to waste all the stitching I've done on the larger piece. I have to think on this a little more.