Easter weekend dyeing

So the Easter weekend project. I've been getting ready for a couple of days, preparing fabrics and adding to my store of tools for dyeing. The additions are a black plastic down pipe and a soil pipe from the plumbing department of a local DIY store. 

"Can I cut this pipe for you madam? No no noo, against the health and safety rules, I might cut my fingers off or go wild and attack you" .... !!!

The pipes are for the Shibori pole wrapping technique, arashi. I'm trying to get several diameters of pole to wrap. Jan Myers-Newbury does amazing things with arashi dyed and pieced fabrics - I am just at the bottom of the long slope to that sort of expertise.

The ingredients for this weekend's experiment have been, four strips of fabric of similar dimensions, long and narrow a mix of silk and cotton. and another bigger piece of silk. I layered two strips together twice; a light and a slightly heavier fabric. One pair were tacked together, then wrapped around a slender piece of plumbing pipe that I had already; tied with rough string and compressed.

The second pair were stitched together using a regular pattern of stitches across and up the fabric, rows and columns,big stitches, widely spaced, to hold the two layers together. 

one side will have more crumples, the other will show more of the neat stitch marks I suspect - and the layered fabrics will echo each other once separated.

All pulled up tight ready for the bucket - this not arashi of course, but stitched and gathered resist.

Finally, a single piece of light silk, folded in half, wrapped diagonally and tied around the soil pipe. 

I've added two elements where the wrapping is more narrowly spaced. and crosses itself in a slow arc round the pipe

Squeeze up tight.

Pop in a bucket of very salty water to open up the fibres for ten minutes or so. Add a mix of royal blue and turquoise dye; fifteen minutes later add a small measure of golden yellow. I'm interested in whether delaying the second colour creates a more interesting mix in the patterns that emerge. Of course a true experiment would be to do a control piece as well, adding the colours at the same time to see if the delay in adding the yellow produces a different effect. Not very scientific, but jolly good fun.

I'll show you the results later in the week when I have time to get them out rinsed and dried.

Exhausted now ....