Mokume shibori

I’m doing a five-week workshop on shibori, and have finally gotten caught up to the current lesson, which is on stitched shibori.  So far all I’ve done is mokume shibori, which is parallel lines of stitching.  Why so much time on one technique?  Because all woven shibori is variants on mokume shibori!  So doing a small number of exercises in hand-stitched mokume shibori will teach me the principles of woven shibori.   Then I can take those concepts back to the loom and work on bigger pieces in woven shibori, confident in my designs.

Here are some of my before-and-after photos:

I’ve learned a tremendous amount about how woven shibori works just from these few exercises, and will continue stitching samplers until I understand the principles of mokume shibori a little better.  Then it will be back to the loom!

Meanwhile, Kodachrome is completed except for the snaps (which need to be sewn down firmly) and the lining, which needs to be re-hemmed.  For some reason, the lining is too short near the center back, so I’ll need to redo the hem, dropping it by about 3/4″.  Fortunately I have enough length that I can do this!  After that, all that will be left is sewing in the label.

Sunday is the photo shoot, and it should be fun!  A friend is coming over to help me do my hair, and I have a makeup artist coming over to “do me up” for the shoot.  First she’s going to do “the natural look” (that’s for Handwoven) and then she’s going to do a much more theatrical look (that’s for HGA/Convergence, if it doesn’t get published in Handwoven).  I’m rather looking forward to the theatrical look – I have, as you know, a penchant for body paint, and I think it would be really cool to have my face painted up with rainbow colors.  Sort of like body paint, only slightly more localized.  🙂