This year, QSDS offers two shibori workshops. I have been fortunate enough to be able to take a two-day program this weekend. The program, Stitch Resist with a Twist I, is taught by Sue Cavanaugh.  QSDS is being held in Columbus, Ohio, a city that seems most supportive of fiber art. The symposium is providing me with knw knowledge, new experience, and new friends.

 

I have been asked to create a four-foot wide, three-foot long silk wall hanging. It's my first commission. (Very exciting!) The silk is a batik, working first with golden yellow dyes and then over-dyeing it with scarlet red.

Batiking with soy wax is very satisfying and relatively fast. This will not be my last batik wall hanging.

Soy wax has made batik much easier, much more accessible. Lower melt temperature means it's easier to melt (and keep melted). The downside to this is it has to be cool to ensure crackling, the upside is easier to remove the wax.

The batik I finished today was done with Jacquard Procion dye, medium blue. I painted the lines and trailing dots with a brush and stamped a vining pattern onto a yard of muslin I had dyed lightly with the blue dye. That way I was able to do this two-tone blue.

 

Welcome to my site! I am the author of the Wordpress blog "B's Dreams," and am slowly moving my operations over here to Louisville Rag and Bone, the name under which I will sell my art and wearables.