Monday, September 7, 2015

Labour Day

To me Labour Day is the official day to start work for the One of a Kind Show. I have actually been working on patterns since July but today the pressure starts. I have been looking at rolls of fabric since mid summer as has Derek with his rolls of annealed wire. The wire is for Art Nests, Peanut Feeders and a newly designed Hummingbird Nectar Feeder.
In July I was asked to run a workshop on Shibori dying techniques. At 10 on a Saturday morning I had 6 women set to learn how to create their own beautiful scarves. After the workshop I decided that I would add scarves in a big way to my collection of items for sale. Way back, years ago when I was at Art School I spent time learning all sorts of fabric dying techniques. From that history I decided that the Arashi Shibori technique was the one I would focus on and have since created many scarves. In Japan, the earliest known example of cloth dyed with a shibori technique dates from the 8th century. The cloth is wrapped on a diagonal around a pole. Then the cloth is very tightly bound by wrapping thread up and down the pole. Next, the cloth is scrunched on the pole. The result is a pleated cloth with a design on a diagonal. “Arashi” is the Japanese word for storm. The patterns are always on a diagonal in arashi shibori which suggest the driving rain of a heavy storm. I took my new scarves and dresses to Summerfolk Festival mid August and not only sold them but won honourable mention, second prize for a dress, scarf combo. I was beaten by a beautiful handmade guitar.