Tutorial: Folded/tied & disperse-dyed shibori (pictorial)

[labricoleuse]

Here's another sample i did for class, creating a striped effect with discharge dyeing. "Discharge dyeing" essentially means, removing color from fabric so that the bound/obscured/obfuscated areas retain the original dark hue and the rest of the fabric exposed to the bath loses intensity and saturation. You can do this with various chemicals, including household bleach. I used a 3:1 water/Clorox solution in hot water.



First, i accordion pleated the fabric, making certain to press the pleats in sharply with an iron.



Then i tied the piece in three places with the intent of creating three stripes lengthwise.
The piece soaked for about 15 minutes in my hot bleach/water solution.



Here's a closeup of the variation in pattern among the stripes!
Check out how the crisply-pressed pleats resulted in those thin perpendicular lines.