Shibori Workshop with Carol Anne Grotrian

Last Saturday I attended a day-long shibori indigo dyeing workshop taught by indigo master Carol Anne Grotrian at the New England Quilt Museum.  Wow, what a productive and inspiring day, exhausting in that great way when you are learning and absorbing so much with ten or so fellow students and one organized, excellent teacher.  The whole experience was such a treat!


Indigo stew!

Carol Anne taught us the artful and efficient method of creating shibori using "arashi" - pole wrapping:

Into the vats go the poles with the fabric wound and scrunched:

Another method using folded fabric and clamps of various sizes:

Resting in between dips in the indigo vats:

This would end up creating that fan-like pattern in the first photo:

To finish off, we unfolded our pieces and boiled them in a soapy bath for about 15 minutes.

Then, voila:

So interesting how the indigo is green in the water, and for a few moments while the fabric is still wet.  It all turns to blue soon enough:

What a great learning experience!

Once my pieces dried at home, I pinned them up (with now indigo hued clothespins!) to survey my results:

This reminds me of a city street in the nighttime after a rain:

Pole wrapping created these:

How cool is this?  I can see cutting out folk arty animal shapes from this:

I love this fan - wish I'd dipped it once more for a deeper indigo:

I have definitely fallen under indigo's spell - and am thinking of the ways I might use fabric with looser weave to create my own indigo dyed pieces for sashiko.  I see an indigo vat in my future...

Linking up here with the Slow Blogger's Linky at Knotted Cotton.  It's a manageable rewarding linky!