Another string. . . . . . . .

And the storms continue. Wind and sideways rain outside. Looking at the weather reports some parts of the country are going through hell. Not much disruption here at the moment, but I feel sorry for those over the other side of the country, the Midlands and Wales. Yorkshire is suffering pretty badly again, especially around Hebden Bridge area. The flood defences have let them down, so sad. 

Yesterday I was taking part in a workshop at 20 21 Arts centre. I learnt the basics of Shibori, where you stitch into the fabric, then dye it. These three samples are what the tutor did to give us ideas for the pattern we might like to make. 

We were all given a piece of white cotton fabric, and I decided to stitch simple leaf shapes into it. You need lots of short pieces of cotton, start off on one side of the design, running stitches all going the same way, and leaving loose ends so they can be gathered up and pulled tight. 

This is mine, all pulled tight, don't cut the loose ends off.

Then it goes into a bucket of water for ten minutes for a good soaking, then transferred to a bucket of dye, and lifted out after two minutes. Some of the ladies did an exercise of folding another piece of fabric into squares and dying that. I skipped that bit.

We took our pieces home and left them to dry. This morning I removed all the threads, washed it in a bowl of water, and dried and ironed it. This is the result. I quite like the look of it. 

I enjoyed doing this, a nice way to spend a rainy Saturday, and I have learnt something new. Looking down the list of workshops on offer, I spotted another one that I might like. Re purposing vintage textile items, could be good, so I booked myself a place. 

It's looking like it might have stopped raining, I need to get outside the back door and cut my hair. 

Toodle pip.  ilona