Fun with Shibori -- Part 3 -- The Reveal

I said that this would be a three part series, but I'm actually only doing a partial reveal today. Sorry, folks. I haven't had a chance to photograph all of the fabric that we dyed and hopefully will be able to do that next week. In the meantime, here is what the process looked like after the dyed pieces sat in the sun for about two hours.

I opened our test piece up right away just to make sure that it looked the way I wanted it to. It did.

Then I started rinsing the other pieces (still bound).

 Still wearing gloves, of course, as the dye wasn't completely rinsed out yet.

I love the way this red piece looked as I was rinsing out. Kind of like a heart or a placenta. Gross? Yes. And also kind of cool. 

After rinsing until the water ran clear, it was time to remove the bindings. This was the fun part...sort of. It was pretty meticulous work to snip all of the little bindings, but still mildly contemplative. I actually really like small meticulous tasks -- it allows my brain to stop thinking for a bit.

I only snipped one hole in the fabric...

So after I cut off the bindings I washed the pieces in the washing machine with a little bit of detergent.

Woohoo! Next up: you'll finally get to see how it all turned out. Finally. I know. It's about time. 

Color-coded

I finally organized my fabric in my office/studio and sorted everything by color. I actually found a few things that I had totally forgotten about. Surprise!

Now I'm on the hunt for a thread/bobbin holder that isn't huge so I can keep my spools and bobbins color coded. Here's how I'm storing them now. It's certainly colorful -- just the way I like it.

Fabric-addict

I may have a problem with buying fabric. I can't stop. I keep finding lovely little patterns that I must have. Like this one by Creative Thursday (part of their brand new Ric Rac Rabbits Collection):

Have I mentioned that I love Hawthorne Threads? It's a small little online fabric store with super cute stuff. One really cool thing about Hawthorne is they have a section for each fabric where people can upload listings of handmade items using that specific fabric. It's perfect for those of us on Etsy and a fun way to see what other folks are making.

Raw materials

I just got these fabrics from FabricWorm. They will be turned into magical baby-wear for our soon to be finished Etsy store. Yippee! I love it when I can't wait to get started on a project. Be on the lookout for some new ninja pants and kimonos!