shibori fold over pouch/clutch

I'll be making more of these shibori & leather bottom numbers. The smaller version will be sized to fit an iPad but intended as an all-purpose clutch. Some will come with a detachable wristlet. Closure styles may include zips, ties, magnetic buttons and my beloved Sam Brownes.

I am most of fond of the dark plum and navy colors I am achieving. Eager

to get rolling on shades of grey and black.

some of my leather remnants are more rough & tumble

than others. can't say I would have it any other way.

a pebbled heavier leather

shibori play: take 2

stitched, hemp/organic cotton

Another batch of shots from playtime with shibori. You can see the last pictures here. Let me just warn you. Removing the super tight, heavy-weight (I've been using upholstery grade thread) stitching after dyeing can be a bear.

stitched concentric circles

knotted and bound resist patterns on linen. I used a

combination of washers, wood & machine stitched lines

A lone dip-dye shot. You can't quite see the teal

undertones It's grey hemp canvas dyed in an ombre-like

progression of greens, then over-dyed in navy.

shibori play

A little bit of shibori-style dyeing going on around here. I've been hankering incorporate resist dyeing into some pieces, as mentioned here.

The other night while watching a show the girls and I rubber banded tumbled stones into a variety of my fabric staples - light to heavy weight linen, mid-weight hemp/organic cotton canvas & soy/organic cotton jersey knit. I was most eager to do some pole-wrapping with my swatches. All I had on hand was one small jar of fiber reactive dye in blue, and not enough of it for more than about 1-2 lbs. of fabric.

We ended up with some nice pieces and some I intend to over-dye. Samples and even a couple finished items below:

kumo style bound-resist with beads & stones made a for great scarf for my 5-yr-old.

arashi pole-wrapping. love the sense of movement

kumo again. headlights & shadows.

Et voila...

sized to fit my iPad with it's rubber-like cover. hemp/organic cotton, linen & leather

I heart Sam Browne buttons

oh shibori... someday our time will come

I've been interested in shibori for a couple of years now. I had admired it in the past, but I hadn't necessarily envisioned myself incorporating shibori into my creations for Spool + Sparrow until just last year. I wanted to read up on it as another way to embellish cloth - sort of a way to make the cloth more my own. And I like the idea of using dyes post-construction of a garment, sometimes in addition to block-printing and/or a bit of limited stitching.

This summer, I spent some time reading up on shibori in its myriad forms. I'm definitely interested in arashi (pole-wrapping), some folding & clamping and bound-resist using a variety of objects - marbles, pebbles, misc. hardware - really captured my interest. By mid-summer, I was stoked.

Then I made the decision to keep my youngest home another year which called for a serious re-evaluation of what I am able to accomplish over the course of a given week. Alas, I have mostly accepted my decision to back-burner shibori a while longer. Perhaps come Spring or Summer, but I'm giving myself no timeline on this one.

Over at Honestly...WTF, Erica shared some of their experience with shibori in this DIY from the summer of 2010. It's a succinct mini-primer with excellent photos of their process. I only stumbled upon it just last week. Glad I did!