Kasuri meets Shibori

Woven shibori must be the most rewarding weave ever. Colours and imprints of patterns  emerging and growing as each segment is woven. Different to pattern weaving where what you see is what you get (WYSIG to geeks), weaving for shibori effects is more subtle and hidden just waiting for the dyebath to complete it.

As I have a detestation of white I dyed the warp beforehand as well, but you can see the white tie threads for pulling in the weave and the hint of twill patterning that the dye will fall into.

The first part of the weave was the experimental and somewhat accidental Kasuri but I do think they go together very well and adds a surprise element to the cloth.

You can see from the draft that plain weave is enclosed by the tie threads which jump in big skips to a large style twill pattern. It doesn’t matter that the skips are big because when complete the cloth is gathered tightly with these threads for the dyebath which will produce the twill imagery in dye. These threads are discarded after use although I keep them for other work because they are accidental works of art in themselves.

You can see in the image the start of the gathering where the Kasuri meets the shibori. So nice.

For more detailed info on Woven Shibori this book is the best I think. Australian weaver Kay Faulkner has also developed and teaches woven shibori.