Silk dyed with natural dyes ~ Lac, Brazilwood, Buckthorn and Cutch. Printed using Japanese Mokume (woodgrain) Shibori stitching technique.
Silk Mokume Shibori
Tag Archives: Silk scarves
Indigo with Weld & Myrobalan
The Linen Scarf has been dyed first with Weld natural dye and then dipped in Indigo. The Silk Scarf was dyed first with Myrobalan and then dipped into Indigo.
Transparent Silks
I love the ethereal, transparent qualities of these Indian silks.
I’ve used Indigo, Persimmon and Logwood natural dyes, followed by machine embroidery.
More Scarves with Natural Dyes and Shibori
I’ve been working with silk from India, experimenting with combinations of Indigo, Persimmon, Rust, Logwood and Pomegranate natural dyes and various Shibori techniques.
Indigo/Shibori/Silk
This Indigo/Shibori/Silk Scarf is a good example of a few of the reasons why I fell madly in love with “Textile Arts”.
Silk is definitely my fabric of choice. The transformation by silk worms of mulberry leaves into the delicate gossamer yet amazingly strong threads of silk is magical.
Indigo is most certainly the queen of natural dyes. How can you not be in awe at watching the change in colours of fabric that has just been removed from an indigo vat change slowly from greens to those gorgeous blues? Pure alchemy!
Silk gauze
I’ve started working with silk gauze. Dyeing it. Sewing it. Learning how to manipulate it. The silk gauze is so fragile it feels like working with air. The transparency and luminosity is wonderful.
In October I took a course at Maiwa from Kyoko Ueda from Japan who taught me how to begin to work with this amazing fabric.
Jamdani Dyed with Indigo and Rust
Jamdani Silk Dyed with Indigo and Rust
Silk Jamdani dyed with Indigo and Rust.
This is a piece of silk Jamdani fabric that I brought back from Calcutta last February. Jamdani weaving is found in Bengal and Bangladesh. It is a supplementary weft technique of weaving, somewhat similar to tapestry. The standard weft creates a fine, sheer fabric while the supplementary weft with thicker threads, in this case metallic red and gold threads, adds the pattern. Each supplementary weft motif is added separately by hand by interlacing the weft threads into the warp with fine bamboo sticks using individual spools of thread. The traditional art of weaving Jamdani has been declared by Unesco as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Indigo
During my recent trip to India I bought a number of exquisite silk scarves, mostly from Calcutta and Bengal. I’ve dyed them with Indigo plus a bit of Iron Rust and Lac.
I made an organic Indigo vat using rotting bananas as the reducing agent.
Michel Garcia’s recipe. It works well!
Silk Scarves with Natural Dyes
I have been dyeing a series of silk scarves with combinations of Indigo, Rust and Blood Root/Sanguineria Canadensis.
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