ENTWINEMENTS

Mokume is a traditional Japanese design that is often translated as wood grain.

This image is from World Shibori Network., look under techniques.

This is a very simple technique; the tools required are a needle and thread and maybe a marker. Parallel rows of hand stitching are gathered tightly before dyeing. There is a simple tutorial at tobasign.com.

Now what I like about this technique for flat patterning is how the lines that are formed from dye on the top of the gathers sort of wander to and fro. This is because the stitches in each line of stitching do not line up precisely. If you wanted them to line up precisely you would mark a series of dots and go down in one and up in the next.Here is an indigo piece from the Flickr pool.

The first thing novices ask me is if they can use the sewing machine. Of course, they can use a sewing machine but they won’t get mokume patterns. This has to do with how the stitches are made. In hand stitching you have one thread and the needle carries it up and down through the cloth, when you pull it tight the cloth undulates.

A sewing machine makes the stitches with two threads and when you gather it the cloth can only make tiny undulations inside the thread cages. The results are more about the resists formed by the thread.

There is a smocking machine that pleats like the hand stitching, with one thread. Here is one I have, see more at the Sewing Studio.

It has many needles that all pierce the cloth at exactly the same point. Here is a piece done with a smocking machine with one needle missing.

Do you think it is as boring as I do?

Jane Steinberg makes textured silk scarves and shawls using mokume. The texture is less dramatic in the difference between hand stitched and smocking machine but she does it by hand and you can read about it here. This is Jane's mokume patterning---lovely, eh?