Doing poles
Did 10 poles today.
So what does doing poles entail? So all 10 are wrapped, in this case they were all ones we had dyed black with Lanaset. The next step is to soak them with water. This maybe the most important step in shibori--and the one most likely to be forgotten. If the silk is dry when the discharge bath or dye bath hits it, it can wick the bath under the resists negating their existence. If the silk is wet when it encounters the next bath only the exposed part reacts with the bath-- so part dyes, part doesn't.
After these poles were soaked, I discharged them. I use thiourea dioxide in a boiling bath and the black is time consuming to discharge. When I get the light color I want I plunge them into a bucket of cold water. This stops the discharging. Then each is washed and rinsed. 5 poles , for black/champagne colorway were separated. The other 5 were over-dyed with 5 colors for the Bossa Nova Black colorway.
Once the color is finished the poles are go thru a 3 part process to set the pleats: acid bath, steamer and the rock 'n roll. To rock 'n roll, you wrap the hot pole in towels to keep it hot, then push down hard on it as you roll it back and forth. How do you rock 'n roll?
Here are the poles drying:
These are the black/champange ones. Hard to see the black silk, eh?
And here are the Bossa Nova Black ones.
Now the trick is to get them bone dry. It is going to be some trick tonight-- a fan usually helps but today the air is 85% RH! I think I'll move some into the air conditioning at midnight. I need the poles tomorrow to wrap more.
