Second Generation

My work on commercial black fabrics with various discharge techniques continues...

Sample 1 above is Bomaki Shibori, a variation of pole-wrapped arashi. In this case the fabric was sewn into a sleeve that fit over the PVC cylinder, scrunched down horizontally, then painted with thickened bleach. The fabric is linen/rayon.

Sample 2 above is Itajime Shibori, pleated and folded cotton gauze resisted with small circular clamps, put in a 15-20% bleach pot.

Sample 3 above is a piece of linen/rayon pleated and folded several times, the bundle then tied in four places with raffia, put in a 15-20% bleach pot for just a few minutes.

Sample 4 above is a piece of cotton folded several times and held together with large binder clips, put in a 15-20% bleach pot for a bit.

Sample 5 above is Komasu Shibori (squares), big this time, on raw silk. This sample and the one below were soaked for a bit in the bleach solution mentioned above (although you're not supposed to put silk in bleach!), then discharged with thiox paste and steamed for about 15 minutes.

Sample 6 above was tied up for Midori Shibori (willow leaf) and soaked for a while in bleach, then overdischarged with thiox paste that was applied to the raw silk with a stamp.

Some comments about some of the materials I've been using -- the black raw silk was purchased from Dharma Trading and the only thing that will remove color from it is thiox. I tried discharging these two samples and several other fiber samples with Jacquard Discharge Paste, but that stuff really doesn't work on commercial black fabric, even though the instructions say it will. Apparently Discharge Paste really only works on Procion dyes.

Although it is highly recommended NOT to use bleach on silk, I tried it anyway and had something interesting happen. The brownish areas on the silk samples above are a bit like burnout because this is where the bleach contacted the silk and it began to thin the fabric a bit. If you hold these up to the light, you can see that the fabric is less dense where the bleach was. Quite interesting. Makes me want to try devore (burnout) now. For the non-fabric folks reading this, burnout is a process done on fabric that is woven with both a synthetic and a natural fiber -- like silk and rayon -- and painting or stamping designs on the fabric with a chemical that burns out the rayon, leaving just the silk. Think "cut velvet."

This is all very interesting stuff and I'm enjoying it. The spontaneity and serendipity of the results are terrific!

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