Do you remember the giraffe?

It was this, piece of dyeing, done back in September last year, a strip of sheet, folded in half, then bound hand and foot with elastic bands

it came out like this, see how the fold down the centre allows the tied elements to mirror

Well, on Sunday, I did a session with Christine at Studio 11, using soy wax and a variety of tools. I bravely tore the fabric in half, and treated each half differently.
One half I did as a swirled tray dye, squirting the dye on to run into different parts of the swirls. I'd be very tempted now to tie lots of little shibori knots into the colours, in a swirling pattern, then drop the cloth into a bucket of really dark dye. I think it might sparkle

The other half was laid out on a plastic sheet while I applied soy wax using a brush and swishing it out from the center of each pattern, so that it looked like slender petals. I brushed little bits of texture into the space between the flower shapes. Then I swirled the dye on, using a pipette, watching it bleed and soak into the fabric along the lines of the wax, sweeps of spiraling colour that ran into each other, then dropping dye into the spaces in between to add a sense of background. Because the fabric was dry, the colour moves about quite differently. That's why with shibori you soak the fabric first, so it doesn't wick into the tied bits.

So, two bits of fabric with the same start and the same colours, but a totally different effect.

Then there's my moon garden, which has evolved from this

to this - click for a bigger version






For the rest of the bits of fabric I dyed there on Sunday, here's a little slideshow, with one screen print as well, the background from my session last Saturday when we did breakdown printing

I really am having extraordinary fun!

I'm also going to Istanbul on Sunday. What inspiration!