Sunday, August 2, 2015

From the vat: Nui shibori

As I mentioned in a previous post, when I saw that my vat had reached optimal conditions, with the dark amber color that indicates well-reduced indigo at a reasonably high concentration, I reached for the pieces of stitched shibori laboriously prepped earlier.  After six rounds of dipping and oxidizing, I took a seam ripper and opened up the first piece, which was a small test piece about 6-1/2" wide meant to try out a design that came into my head:


I had three more pieces of nui shibori which I put through an additional four rounds of dipping and oxidizing before carefully undoing the stitching.  The results were thrilling.  First of all, here's my pride and joy, a selvage-to-selvage quarter-yard piece using a technique that I learned from Jane Callender last fall:


mokume close-up
another mokume close-up

I also love how this tatewaku pattern turned out:


Sorry not to offer a close-up.  My photo-editing program managed to eat up the image as I was editing it--a really strange glitch that I hope won't become a regular thing.

Mokume stripes on the diagonal also turned out well, although closer rows of stitching might have avoided some of the uneven breaks in the dyeing:



More to come!

8 comments:

  1. All of these pieces are stunning Jessica!

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  2. Those look so amazing! The mokume piece looks like it's glowing.

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  3. Beautiful mokume - Jane would be delighted!

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    1. Thanks--I will have to send Jane an email and tell her!

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  4. Love the way these stitched patterns have turned out! So envious of you and Kim for getting the chance to work with Jane!!

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    1. Maybe you can set up a gig for Jane in the Bay Area? Or come up to Vancouver for the Maiwa Symposium the next time she's here!

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  5. Hi Jessica, just popping by after replying to your messages in my blog (https://tetsukuri.wordpress.com) I really like the contrast in your mokume, very beautiful!

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    1. Thanks, Lu! The real pieces are not quite so bright, but they do have a lot of contrast, as well as beautifully layered solid areas. I did a lot of dipping!

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