Preparations

Tomorrow, I'm going to my next workshop at Studio 11. Colourfun, once a month for the coming year. What pleasures to come!

The first session is resist dying, which was what I did for the mini quilt workshop, so I've been preparing.

pre-stitched/tied pieces waiting for tomorrow

I've done

cotton stitched in wavy lines, with points pulled up to make spiderswebs

the wavy lines all drawn up into exotic looking ruches

Silk wound round a plastic tube, then bound with, in the one case, fine cotton, in the other, rough thick twine. I'm interested in how the different binders affect the pattern; whether the texture of the twine will appear in the resist.

 More cotton, a strip this time, folded into triangles, concertina style, then stitched right through at the borders with, perhaps, the arms of a snowflake pattern. The stitching then drawn up on two sides, and on the snowflake arms, for texture. I'm hoping the stitches on the long edge will resist right through and leave a little ant trail at the folds end make the final arms of the snowflake. Alternatively, there'll be a jumble of textures, reading as nothing!

Then there's the old linen tea towel, probably Ganna's; folded, again concertina style, (linenfold) then folded again and wrapped, not too tight, with a rubber band

Lastly, some leaves, perhaps, or maybe little fish ...

stitched into the single layer of fabric, drawn up tight and tied off, with a little spin round the nubbin for added texture

 then I pleated (as best I could) the fabric across it's width, leaving the little nubbins sticking out. We'll see.

Where are the ideas coming from? From Janice Gunner's Shibori for Textile Artists. It is full of so many interesting things. You may remember the video I posted on Shibori a while back. It's the Japanese art of tying  binding, pleating and otherwise adding resists to cloth with thread, clamps and "stuff". Having absorbed plenty from Christine's last workshop, I really wanted to have some ready prepared cloth as well as doing some more folding and clamping tomorrow, with the other bits of cloth I've not shown you!

I wonder what pictures I'll be posting on Tuesday!