Project 6 - research

This project is about fabric manipulation and starts with a research project. There are many different types of fabric and many techniques to create or to design them. In the old days when the world was much smaller the fabrics were made from fibers available locally: wool, linen, cotton and if you were wealthy and could afford it: silk. Nowadays with modern technology many fabrics are (partly) made from synthetic fibers. It depends on the materials used in the fabric, how you can dye or paint it. In my sketchbook I have samples of different types of fabrics. In this blogpost I will write a bit more about shibori.

Shibori is an old technique of using resist in different ways to create patterns on the fabric. One of the countries who have a long history in shibori is Japan, but there are also examples of pre-Columbian shibori found in Peru. The oldest known Japanese exampleof shibori is from the 8th century. Shibori can be tied around a pole, stitched, clamped and pleated in many ways. Each way of applying shibori has it's own name.

This is a picture of a kimono made between 1930-1950 using a stitched and bound shibori. The material used is cotton. Each design has its own name. On this kimono a woodgrain and butterfly design have been used.

This picture shows another example of shibori. It is a pleated sheer organza by Karren Britto. And to show that shibori can used in other ways besides garments, have a look at these pictures:

This is a lampshade made from 100% polyester by Hiroyuki Murase.

And a shibori cushion cover made from 100% polyester by Ando. The fabric used for the last two pictures is polyester. When polyester is steamed it will stay into the threedimensional shapes