shibori

Posted on 02/02/201701/02/2017 by Susan Goodwin — 2 Comments

Sewing Adventures – Shibori Dress

This one has been sitting waiting to be posted for oh forever. I’ve never been happy with the photos I get of this dress and well today I decided it doesn’t matter just go with it.

Sometimes it’s just ALL ABOUT THE FABRIC and this is certainly one of those cases. When we attended the Shibori workshop I knew I wanted to create a piece of fabric that I could turn into a garment. With that in mind I found some nice quality 100% cotton, pre washed it and took it with me to the workshop. It dyed fantastically well but it’s a super solid fabric so it has zero give in it, sometimes while wearing the finished dress it feels somewhat restrictive. You can see here how it pulls at the waist and the strain on the invisible zipper.

After learning about the techniques and having a bit of an experiment (the results of those I used here) I decided to go with an Itajme resist, where wooden shapes are used alongside the folding and pleating to create the design. It’s wonderfully effective and I loved the end result. What I really loved those was the pieces where the folds weren’t perfect and you go these cool spiderweb style designs.

In order to show it off I went with my basic bodice that I’ve been trying to perfect and a pleated skirt. The skirt is just 2 rectangles pleated. At the centre back I even had to cut down the centre of the rectangle to get an invisible zipper in. Not wanting to waste a single millimeter of this fabric I’ve used all the way to the selvedges, have tiny seam allowances and just let the fabric do all the work. The entire dress is lined in cotton voile to help make it more opaque.

I love it! It is beautiful to wear and the inky lines are so pretty. I think I can safely say this is not the last time I will be experimenting with creating my own fabric designs using Shibori techniques.

Pattern: my own bodice block, pleated rectangles for skirt
Fabric: 100% cotton shibori dyed
Changes for next time: increase size of bodice to allow for zero give in fabric as the bodice gets too tight.

Posted on 03/03/201601/03/2016 by Susan Goodwin — 4 Comments

Stylish Remakes – Japanese Sewing book giveaway

Some time ago I was given a copy of Stylish Remakes to review, when I was asked to do it I said sure, I’m not normally an up cycling type of sewer but am always interested to have a look at something.

When the book arrived I was intrigued. It has some really great ideas to take pre existing garments and give them some cool and sometimes quirky twists to create a new garment.

I was all inspired and yet the book has been sitting there and I haven’t created any projects. I sat down the other week to choose a project and then it dawned on me, I’m trying to decrease my stash and I rarely if ever buy any clothes (even 2nd hand clothes).

This is a book that is to be utilised and treasured by upcyclers who love to rummage at a charity shop. Who chop and recreate and do all manner of wondrous things with an existing start point…and I’m not one of those people. I struggle to find anything at charity shops, am hopeless at doing alterations because to me it’s faster and easier to just grab fabric from the stash and create from the very beginning.

Despite all this the book really sparks my imagination, one of the pieces I really like is taking a bunch of bandannas and making outfits from sewing them together. Such a cool idea to use scarves or bandannas or even fat quarters. Now I don’t have any of those things but I do have a collection of lovely swatches from when we did our Shibori workshop.

I started sewing them together using french seams in the fine fabric. it was this very fineness that made me reconsider the dress as the fabric was virtually sheer and a dress made from it would be unwearable. Creating something only for the photos goes against all the good that upcycling promotes so I needed another way of using the sewn together squares.

During all this sewing and thinking it’s been really hot, when I’m working at home I keep the front door open to promote a cross breeze. This is good except for the flaw that everyone who walks past has a look in, it seems like half the apartments in my building are now some kind of AirBnB and the foot traffic / looking in was getting a little ridiculous for my tastes.

Taking my sewn together squares and inspiration from Japanese doorways which often have fabric coverings called Noren, I created one of my own.

As you can see it keeps the airflow going but discourages peeping eyes, added benefit of looking really beautiful.

So while it’s not a project from the book it is a project inspired by the book which has certainly made me look more seriously at upcycling and how I can use what is around me to create new things.

The publishers have generously given me a book to giveaway to any Australian upcyclers (sorry overseas readers maybe next time), so if you genuinely think you want to give upcycling a go or are a current upcycling fan then please leave a comment below telling me why you should get the book or linking to one of your own upcycling projects. I’ll choose a winner within a week and post it out.

Posted on 19/10/201419/06/2019 by Susan Goodwin — 16 Comments

Shibori Workshop Wrap Up

Shibori has long fascinated me and now I think I’m even more enthralled after a thoroughly wonderful day learning about it.

Who knew from a vat of gunky black looking sludge that frankly smelt a little gross.

This could happen.

and this

and so many more shades and patterns of wonderful inky hues.

Pepa and Karen from Shibori were great in breaking down the system. How to pleat and bind and most importantly how to embrace the unpredictability, that the most beautiful results often came when least expected.

It was so fun and just what I was hoping for. I wanted a day where I could learn the techniques, experiment, end up with some useable fabric pieces and then go away with a head exploding with ideas of what to do next. It truly was inspiring.

Being able to share all that with the Sydney Spoolettes was a blast. As a group we are brought together by our love of sewing but even in the few short months we have been a group real friendships have formed and the camaraderie is empowering as we all make our way in the world.

For anyone considering doing the workshop I saw GO FOR IT! you will not regret it. My top tips would be

– take extra fabric of varying lengths, widths and textures

– pre wash all your fabric

– pre iron all of your fabric

– have an idea of what you want to achieve, the enthusiasm is infectious and a little overwhelming. Being able to keep yourself on track will mean you get out what you want from it

– embrace the unpredictable and go outside your own boundries

For more images you can pop over to my flickr page (I’ve been trying all afternoon to get my flickr to work, it won’t, so I added the photos here as a gallery instead), Maria from Veloswer has some stunning images on her flickr and I am sure there will be more images coming up soon.

I have quite a bit of fabric that I dyed during class, am sifting through it all and planning what to make so expect more Shibori goodness soon.
Lastly thank you to the Spoolettes who attended it was wonderful to see you all, huge welcome to the newcomers too. Thanks to Mel for organising lunch at the pub and huge huge thank you to Pepa and Karen for sharing your knowledge with us.

Posted on 17/10/201419/06/2019 by Susan Goodwin — 4 Comments

This weekend the Spoolettes and I are attending a Shibori workshop and I am so excited, like really excited.

Since I found the workshop I’ve been madly pinning inspiration and ideas to my Shibori Pinterest board (um sorry if you got mega spammed during one of my mammoth pin sessions). So I’ve pulled some of my favourites here to showcase them and get me ready to learn all about it during the workshop.

via Prism of Threads via Tory Birch via Anthropologie via Amy Nguyen

Posted on 22/08/2014 by Susan Goodwin — 12 Comments

Shibori Workshop

For years I’ve been fascinated by the indigo dyes of Japan and the designs of Shibori. It truly is an art form and their inky seductiveness is too good to resist.

I’ve also seen plenty of DIY/online type tutorials that look amazing and some sewists have had some absolutely fabulous results with their own efforts. So all of this got me hunting for a way to learn more about how to create these looks.

A late night trawl through Instagram led me to Shibori a Sydney based workshop that not only sells breathtaking pieces but also conducts workshops. A few emails later and they agreed to put on a special beginners workshop that we can fill with sewists.

Numbers are very limited so if you’d like to come along let me know as soon as you can and we will make arrangements for the class fee.

Details are

Date: 18th October

Shibori Studio: 30A Salisbury Rd Stanmore NSW 2048

Cost: $110

Class includes: provisions to make 1 x scarf, 1 x approx 2.5m length of fabric. You can also bring fabric from home.

Wear: Comfortable clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty and appropriate shoes.

All images via Shibori_textiles Instagram feed