Color Creations

After a year of doing nothing due to a couple of moves (home renovations) and everything being in storage, I am finally starting to get back on track to creating again. Unfortunately, my forays into shibori have been rather disappointing. Not ready to give up, going back to the proverbial drawing board started a search through books and online reources to figure out how I had done what I did in the past to be able to get the same results as before.

For some reason, I was not getting the saturation I wanted with the folded pieces, even without a clamp. The end result was either not enough color or too much as with the dinner napkins and T-shirt below.

Of course, there are always those times when even though you don't get the result you expected, the outcome is still attractive. Such was the case with the dinner napkins below.

Even though I still haven't reproduced anything that looks like what I did before, I am starting to do more with clamping as a resist. It's a lot less labor intensive than stitched resists (haven't graduated to starch yet) and fairly easy to do with single color dyeing. I am having success with small pieces of fabric and excited to try and replicate that success on a larger scale.

The three brown pieces were done in a bucket with Dylon. I used less water than what the directions said because the full four cups had produced a much lighter brown with a greenish tinge previously. (Still trying to figure out how to fix that piece.)

I also tried using liquid RIT in the washing machine for the first time, and just like with everything, some stuff came out well and some stuff didn't. One thing I've found with the RIT so far, at least in the washer, is that I can't really get the true color I am going for since I can't control the amount of water. On two different attempts, the color came out way lighter than it was supposed to except for the light blue denim which came out darker because it was already a light shade.

For single color dyeing, I am still getting the best results with Dylon, though for multicolored fabrics, I still use cold water fiber reactive dyes. Even though they take a little more time and effort, there is a definite advantage to being able to apply multiple colors at once.

An Origami Christmas

I love Origami and I have often used it in the classroom as an exercise to help students learn how to follow directions. The kids love doing it and there's the quick gratification factor that not only makes them happy about doing something fun/new, but also helps to boost their self esteem.

This morning on Twitter I saw a link to 3D holiday origami on the Origami Kids blog, and when I followed the link, I saw another for a cute origami Santa. I immediately shared it on Facebook and emailed a couple people about it. The Santa would be a great activity to do with kids, adorable as a decoration on holiday gifts, or cute just dangling from a Christmas tree.

If you're making a lot of these with kids or to hang on your tree, purchase a roll of solid red gift wrap (no print) and cut the paper into squares yourself. It's not only economical, but you can make the squares the size you want and wrapping paper folds very well for origami.

There were some other nifty Christmas themed origami projects as well  I started thinking about how neat it would be to have an entire tree covered in origami. This wreath, also from Origami Kids, is made from modular pieces: http://origami-kids-en.blogspot.com/2010/11/origami-christmas-wreath.html.

The site also has a diagram for an origami reindeer, and while the modular Christmas tree and the 3D origami Christmas tree are great, the origami snowflake is amazing! I've added the embed code below for the you tube Santa video, though you'll more than likely want to visit the blog yourself.



I started looking around online and found a whole gallery of origami Santas (four pages!) of varying design from very simple folds to 3D standing versions. I also found an awesome assortment of origami ornaments at the origami resource center. (I just LOVE playing with paper!) On the same site where I found the simple folded tree below (makes a great table centerpiece) there was great eight-pointed origami star.

Fans of modular origami will no doubt appreciate this life-sized origami Christmas tree by Sharon Turvey that took months to assemble. For those who are not quite that ambitious a simpler origami Christmas tree folded from a single piece of paper will have to suffice. This one can be done with children or seniors as part of a group project.

Of course now that I've been looking at all these diagrams I don't want to do any work! I just want to get out some paper and start playing! Look for pretty paper things coming soon!