phalenopsis

i've always thought that one has to be of a certain age to cultivate orchids and wear pearls. So here is one of my plants in bloom. i'll spare you the pearls :)

neki desu

shibori tablecloth

Interrupting my humble loom controlled shibori attempts to show you this awesome piece of cloth.
It is an indigo dyed and shiboried cotton tablecloth. Needless to say i haven't had the nerve to use it. Just the thought of spilled red wine gives me a headache. Consequently it is displayed on the foyer sofa and it gets the looks whenever i go to my studio, just one more reason to get there :)
i bought this cloth in Tokyo at a shop in Ueno where they also had the most incredible array of obi cords that i saw in Japan.
By the way, the sakura trees in the park may be getting ready to bloom.

neki desu

loom controlled shibori-show and tell

Here you can see the process involved in the dyeing part of loom controlled shibori.
Some of the messages i got prompted me to show the dyeing part more clearly than what i had explained in the previous posts. The weaving here was very straightforward plain weave on 24 shafts and the supplemental weft was a twill.
The photo tute is pretty self explanatory and i will just add a few things :

• the fabric is silk and was dyed using Procion dyes and acetic acid
• stamping was made using pigments and Golden GAC900 and soft gel medium semi gloss; fabric hand did not change significantly
• as pigments do not dye they can be used to create an extra layer of color
• some more stamping was done using thickened Procion dyes

Something unusual happened here as the cotton supplemental thread took the dye very well.
Taking the slow cloth approach and instead of cutting the knots on both selvages i undid the knots and slowly pulled out the thread. i was gratified with an ikat like perle cotton thread that will be good as weft in another project. Two for the same effort. This is called energy saving and maximizing your resources :)


neki desu