Shibori

Shibori is the Japanese art of tie dying. I have been wanting to do this craft for a super long time and this summer seemed like the right time to do it. I gathered quite a bit of materials for this project. I bought cotton pillow cases and sheet sets, string and thread, RIT denim dye (I couldn't find any true indigo in our stores here....), a large PVC tube, and rubber bands. I also used beads which I'll explain later in this post.

The most complicated method I did was the thread wrapping called Kanoko shibori. First I drew the pattern lightly in pencil on the pillow case. I did a very simple diamond pattern so that it would be easy to follow.

Then following the lines I placed a bead and wrapped thread around the base a few times. I did not tie the thread as you need to unbind the beads after dying. 

The finished pillow case looks like the picture below. This took about 3 hours to complete, but it was worth it.

I also did Itajime shibori which is tightly bound cloth, Arashi shibori which is wrapped around a tube and tied, and Kumo shibori which is where you fold and press the cloth into triangles.

To dye the fabric I uses 3 gallons of hot water (as hot as I could stand with my hands) plus 2 cups of salt and of course one bottle of Rite Dye. Some of the fabric I placed in the dye bath and some I just dipped and held to have the dye only stain part of the fabric fold.

I love the way it turned out. The Kanoko shibori technique is my favorite and took the most work. I would like to try true indigo dye some day, but these are still very cool and the boys love their new sheets.