Adventures in weaving: Shibori scarf

I have started on the next Shibori scarf. I am planning on making the Goldfish scarf with the stencil I made as well as the Dragon fly design. I am going to use all the lessons I learned from the first time I did them. I am using a blooming leaf over shot for the Shibori portion.

I want to do my very best work here because I am going to try to get my scarf’s accepted for a Juried Art show in Escondido. The show is being hosted by Escondido Arts Partnership and is being held at the Escondido Municipal Gallery. The show will be September 1 – October 1 2010. I hope that my work will be good enough to at least be in the exhibit.

UPDATE: I have finished weaving the Shibori scarf’s for the Goldfish and Dragonfly design.

The next scarf I decided to try something new. This time I put the gathering threads in the warp and the weave structure is a plain weave on a straight draw threading. I plan on gathering the fabric then direct dye in a blue color. Afterwards, I am going to stencil a hummingbird and flowers on the scarf in a deep shade of blue, almost black.

Then, I moved over to my Loomcraft 8 shaft. I am having the hardest time trying to decide what design to use for the Zebra scarf. Sooooo, I am going to try this idea. I am making solid squares or windows if you will, that I will paint Nemo’s stripes on. The squares are positioned with one in the middle, one on the left then the right and repeat till finished. Also, I am weaving 10 picks between each pattern pick. I'm still not certain what colors I am going to use. The emails I have received so far points toward Pinks, purples, and plum colors. I will use a direct dye application on the gathered portions and sort of feather the color around the squares. After that is finished, I will then paint the stripes in the squares. I plan on having a dye weekend to complete all the scarf's for the Guild fashion show on Monday the 14th of June.

This scarf I used an advancing twill on 8 shafts. I am thinking about using a lime green and lavender in a zigzag dye application, followed by gathering and over dying with a Navy blue. I will bake it in the dryer to set the pleats for added texture and see how it turns out.

More on this after this weekend :) Keep your fingers crossed!

JUNE 9th

Now that all the scarf’s have been woven, now comes the dye planning. This is where I plan out the design in detail.

Here you can see that I have copied my stencil and placed them on the scarf to get an Idea of how I will paint the images on the fabric.

Now on to the stencil making for the Zebra scarf,

Here I took pictures of Nemo then I cropped the picture to capture a specific area. After that I traced the image onto stencil material. I cut out the dark areas to make the stencil.

I used a marker to color in the areas I cut out to test the stencil

Next, I made the stencil for the Goldfish scarf. I made the body then I saw a butterfly stencil I had for years and thought “I think I can use this for the fish tail and fins”. So I did!