Shibori

What you know as tie-dye is [usually] a very unsophisticated version of shibori.

When you tightly tie or twist or fold or clamp or compress cloth, then immerse it in dye, or drop dye on it... this is called shibori.

It's a huge discipline.

So here is a restaurant door cloth that has tiny patches of tie-dye and drop-dye.

The cloth above also was clamped into a dye vat of indigo. The indigo could only travel up to the clamping edge.... the blue/white curve at the bottom.

Below is one of my favorite kinds of shibori. The cloth is sewn from edge to edge in running stitches (the most simple of all stitches). The lines run one or two inches apart from each other. Then the sewing threads are pulled in really tight. The now compressed cloth is then dipped dyed-- classically in indigo--dried out while still compressed & maybe re-dyed & re-dried a few more times. The tight sewing lines are then reopened and everywhere you see white in the cloth is where the dye couldn't get to because of the compression!

The cloth has a 'memory' of being compressed so there is a crinkly texture to the cloth too.

 I haven't figured out how this cloth was folded & clamped to create the pattern below, except 60 or 120 degree angle folds were made.

This is  part of a shibori silk scarf below. I can tell that the starting cloth was yellow & there were two separate foldings-&-dyeings. There was one for the orange dip dye and one for dark blue. The two patterns overlap.

The pattern in this scarf was also created by parallel lines of running stitches. 

After getting this scarf I saw this pavement....

I loved the colors in this scarf from Bali. It was folded and bound with string for compression before being dyed. This folding, binding & dying happened at least twice. Some of the binding lines cross. The fabric was hideous polyester, but I regret not buying it. 

Both the Japanese & Indians use this kind of tie systems that give a very dotty effect. You need a special gizmo to hold the cloth at a point, so you can fold and make a tie close to that point. There is a visual difference when you wrap the tying thread 5 or 7 times before moving on the the next point. It's incredibly labor intensive & the results are stunning. Fortunately the tied knots are very easily undone, no scissors needed!

On the one below the red dots were added before the ties were undone.

Finally, I saw some tiles in a shopping center that were glazed to look like shibori folds.

That's it for now.