27 September 2009

Sunday, 1-6 PM

Entwinements Studio, 111 Allen, Yellow Springs OH 45387

Dye small projects in a fully equipped studio

 

Stamping on Cotton

 

We will use thickened fiber reactive dyes and stamps to print.  I have many, many stamps but you can bring yours too (just put your name on them).  Bring your cotton, rayon or other cellulose fiber or silk as a T-shirt*, yardage* or bag*.  The cloth you want to print on should be white or light colored because dyes are transparent and you will see the ground color through the dye.  Wash the cloth in hot water and dry before you bring it.  Iron for a flat surface that prints clearly but wrinkled surfaces give interesting effects.  I will have many colors in the fiber reactive dyes but the adventuresome can mix their own.  You should have time to print 3 items , but that depends on the personality of the printer. The printed cloth can be taken home in a plastic bag and after 24 hours you can wash it and it will be ready to wear.

 

 Come and play in my colors.

 

$25

 

Limited to 5 participants

 

Registration is on a first come biases, you are not registered until I have your money. You can call or mail in your registration. Dyeing is messy, wear appropriate clothes and bring gloves.

 

 

 

*We can make a group order to Dharma Trading, they have many scarves, T-shirts and clothing items and yardage that are ready to dye.  I will need your registration , item(s) number and size and payment for the item(s) by the 15^th to get them here in time.

 

 

 

 

Registr

 

Posted by Karren at 09:23 AM | Permalink

 We will be doing hand stitching to create resists for dyeing in our  first Silk Shibori Session starting on 28th of July. We will also do fold and clamp (itajime).

There are many kinds of stitched designs and a few of the Japanese names are mokume, ori-nui, maki-age.  I'm not trying to teach you Japanese but if you search this blog for these terms you will find  much information.  Also see pages 85-90 of my book.  We even had a challange on maki-age and there is a lot of info and pics.

As of this moment all participants in the class are also weavers.  Some stitched shibori  can be done while weaving.  Here is an article about handwoven shibori if you have not seen much. The way you compress the cloth, and how to dye the resisted cloth are the same whether you have laid in the the gathering threads while weaving or used a needle after the cloth is woven.  Patterns and spacing are related too. Hand stitched, not done on the loom, is more versatile.  It is hard to create images on the loom.

 Here are pictures of a woven shibori project start to finish.   Weavezine recently had an article about woven shibori on a rigid heddle loom.  The weakest link in most of these projects is the dyeing of the shibori.  I hope this short sesion in stitched shibori would lead to  sucessful dyeing of any future  shibori project, woven or not, undertaken.

 

Posted by Karren at 12:04 PM | Permalink

To accomodate prearanged events, it is vacation time after all, I have changed the dates and structure.
The instructions have been moved from Sunday to two week days.  You still need time to do some stitching at home.  We have 3 participants and it is a go.  Room for 2 more people each week.

We have chosen these dates:

Session 1-stitched resists
Tuesday, 28 July. 7-9 PM -meet to receive materials and instruction on stitched resists
Sunday, 2 August , 1-6 PM- dye prepared samples

Session 2-fold and clamp
Monday, 3 August- meet for more instruction, materials, trouble shooting
Sunday, 9 August-1-6PM -dyeing and photos

They are not mutually exclusive; you can do more stitching for 9th and you can do some folding and clamping on the 2nd.The best way to do this is to take both sessions; you will learn things you might want to try again; but life is very congested for most people these days and if you want to take only one session you can.

Both sessions: $140 with book, $120 if you already have my book. 
One session: $90 with book, $70 if you already have my book.

Posted by Karren at 07:15 PM | Permalink

I knew that the silk shibori class was too close to the dates to get much enrollment but now I've had a request to do it later.  So we will do it later, don't have dates yet.

 

In August the Sundyes will be small projects completed in one day they will all be natural dyes: Osage Orange (a Yellow), Madder, and Indigo again.  With this pallette a wide range of colors can be achieved, for example indigo over Osage Orange for greens and indigo over madder for purples.

Posted by Karren at 10:33 AM | Permalink

   

Shibori on silk

12, 19, 26 July (3 weeks)

 fold & clamp, stitched, capped
Meet at the Entwinements studio Sunday afternoon, 1-6PM
5 Students, $120 includes materials or $140 with book (autographed)

No prior knowledge of shibori or dyeing is needed and all levels are welcome.  We will explore the techniques that only require simple tools but can create many interesting patterns such as  fold & clamp (itajime), hand-stitching (mokume, ori-nui, etc.) and capping (maki-age).

•    Each student will receive 10 sample size pieces of silk to learn the techniques, a marking crayon and some other materials
•    Entwinements has a large supply of templates and clamps for your use in fold and clamp
•    Appropriate dye baths in colors requested by the students will be  available the 2nd and 3rd weeks. Five colors each week.
•    Each student can have additionally one large (about 1 yd.) piece of silk of their choice (from the samples) for a final project
•    Each student will supply their own hand sewing tools and have a copy of SHIBORI: creating color and texture on silk.

12  JULY
Receive materials,  Instructions and demonstrations on each technique.  Look at samples and plan your work.  Homework is to do the hand stitching.

19 JULY
Bring stitched samples for dyeing.  Other samples can be folded and clamped at the studio.  We will then soak and dye the samples that are ready.  There will be 5 requested colors and you can dye in each pot if you wish.  Open samples and study  the results.  Plan final project.   Stitching or other prep work can be done at home .

26 JULY
•    Final dye day; 5 more pots of colors the students request.  You can dye in one or all pots.  Open and display and photography of all projects.


You can see examples in the book or at entwinements.com.  With only 5 participants we should be able to accommodate to everyone.  Just let me know what you would like.  Please email (karrenatentwinements.com, change the at to@) with any questions.

Posted by Karren at 08:09 PM | Permalink

I have created a group at Flickr, Sundyes at Entwinements, so that participants can upload photos.  You need and invitation to become an uploading memeber, and I think that I have sent invitations  to all participants.  If you haven't received your invitations just let me know and I'll send you a new one.  Everyone, even non-participants, can see the photos. They can be photos taken at the workshop or even more interesting is what your projects look like when after the workshop.  What do those wonderful colors look like after they have dried and/or then been used in a project. 

Please share!  The more we see the more we learn.  Sometimes it is easier to learn form someone elses' project because we  didn't come with any expectations for their project and we can see it for what it really is.

Posted by Karren at 05:55 PM | Permalink

I think people enjoyed painting their skeins last Sunday afternoon.  A little color here, a little more there and soon everyone is into fun colors.

 

 

 

 

Now on to indigo, the oldest and yet the hardest dye to use.  There is already a lot on this blog about indigo since the Japanese love indigo so and it is the most forgiving dye to use for shibori, so it is great for shibori novices.  Let's just look at some pics of indigo dyed cloth:

 

 

 

 This is a T-shirt with a few lines of stitched shibori

 

 

 

I hope you can see how many colors of indigo there are.

 

I will be preparing the vat, all you have to do is bring your yarn or cloth ready to dye. The fiber should be cotton or other vegtable fiber to take the high pH of this vat. For those who want to know about making the indigo vat you can read instructions here.

 

Posted by Karren at 07:40 PM | Permalink

PAINTING SKEINS

This is a more difficult project than the dip dyeing.  I think that the fiber reactive dyes are more difficult, but the best option for cotton and other cellulostic fibers.

You may paint a skein or a warp.  We learned last week that when there are only 5 people in the workshop and when they  co-operate, you can dye a lot more than 8 oz. of fiber.  Every one will get to do their 8 oz. then if time and materials allow, you can do more.  Come prepared for more.

In painting you are putting colors side by side, not layering them.  This means that you can put red and green beside each other with out getting the dreaded mud brown.

However this is also what makes the process more difficult.  You have painted one spot your favorite color and now what color do you put beside it?  Any color in the world, this can be too many choices.  What will it look like?


I suggest  that you bring a picture, variegated yarn or natural object to help.  We can then pick 3-5 colors from that design inspiration for the first painting experience.  Once you have painted one skein, you might have more or new ideas about the second.   

Here is a picture that Carol sent me, I suspect it was taken with the Hubble Telescope up high:

 

I see periwinkle blue, oranges,  dark browns and little bits of off-white.


So bring a magazine pictures, or a sample of a color combination to get started.

So any skein will work.  A warp will not muddle all the colors together when you weave, but put in lots of figure 8 ties to keep the warp in order.  Normal size skeins will blend the colors together.  If you make long skeins, say 10 yds. (a warping board will allow you to do this) you will get sucesive bands of colors.

Anyhow, come with some damp cellulose yarn and have fun with colors!

Posted by Karren at 12:28 PM | Permalink

We had a great time yesterday.  Five women came, they were nice to each other, helped each other, learned from each other-- we had a great time.  I forgot to take pictures, sorry.

 We did have one yarn that looked beautiful in the dye pot but washed out latter, so now we think it was not silk.  This is a relatively common problem in dyeing workshops.  I won't start speculation about why this happens because it could go on for far too long.  Just double check before you invest a lot of time dyeing.  Checking can be a simple as dipping a 2" piece of the yarn in a dyepot for 5 min., remove and rinse.   Or a burn test.

 

 We used Lanaset Dyes yesterday in six colors, suede, wheat, sage green, pink, bright blue and vivid purple.  I had 20L of dye bath mixed up and we just ladled some out to use for our dyeing,  the women asked how I mixed it up.  Most of the time the bath additives are given in terms of WOF but I general determine the amount of additives by the volume of the bath, a standard industry procedure.  Both work but yesterday it was more convenient to use the volume approach.

 

I measure the volume of water.  For each liter(about a quart) of water I added:

    * 2g of Glaubers salt (sodium sulfate)
    * 2g of a penetrant such as Albegal SET or Cibafluid LA
    * a pinch of sodium acetate
    * 1mL 49% acetic acid

Then I measure the pH, I want a pH of 4.5.  If it is higher than 4.5 I add more acid-- drop by drop, if it is lower than 4.5 add teaspoons of sodium acetate.  Measure the pH again.  Keep adjusting until 4.5 is reached.

 

The amount of acid needed will depend on your water, my water comes from a limestone aquifer and requires a lot of acid.  You may need less.  The sodium acetate and acetic acid are used to maintain the pH of the bath; it does not matter the absolute amount that you use, it just matters what the pH is.

Posted by Karren at 12:39 PM | Permalink

IMMERSION DYEING is the most common form of dyeing.  You make a bath in a pot or vat with lots of water and the dissolved dye, then add the prepared fiber.  Heat and stir until the dye is fixed to the fiber.  Then the fiber is removed from the bath, rinsed and dried.  In this process the dyeing and fixing are all one process.

It is possible to spread the dissolved dye on the surface of the fiber, then go though a process to fix it to the fiber.  This is called DIRECT APPLICATION and the dye can be applied to the prepared fiber by painting, silk screening, stamping, etc.  Dyes are usually fixed by steaming  but some can be fixed at a lower temperature for a longer time. After fixing the fibers are rinsed and dried.

The Dip Dye a Skein workshop (7 June) will do immersion dyeing and the Paint a Skein workshop (14 June) will be direct application.

Posted by Karren at 08:16 PM | Permalink