Friday, January 02, 2009

A creative year


I decided to dye some allover pieces to go with the shibori - you know, actually MAKE something from the fabric. I wanted one in the golds and the other in browns. I thought they turned out too wishy-washy so I overdyed them by the "suck up" method with more brown and the warm black.

Still didn't like them. Then I decided I wanted to put luscious crimsons over top, so I mixed up Magenta and Turkey Red with some warm black -this takes the brightness out and gives the red a gorgeous depth. (They look better in real life than in the photos). Here are the results, which I'm happy with. I've decided to make something in the theme of fires - where I live is a dry area with not much rainfall in summer, so fires are a constant fact of life.

However.....now I'm not so happy with the original shibori - some of the colours smudged and are not crisp, plus the colours are now wrong for the reds.

On the surface design email list I belong to, we're working through the alphabet (one letter per fortnight)doing a project or technique related in some way to that letter. I've chosen Arashi Shibori for my "A" project - this is done by wrapping cloth (usually silk, but I have to practise on cotton) around a pole and dipping or painting it with dye. I thought I'd play with that using the same reds, plus browns and black and yellows, to see if I can come up with better results. Watch this space!

I haven't been entirely idle on the knitting front.Here is my take on the Yarn Harlot's ribbed scarf. Not being able to afford Noro, I am using a ball of my own hand dyed yarn mixed with a ball of op shop boucle (cost=$1).

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