June 10 and 11 from 10:00 to 4:00

Important: Please bring a lunch

Location: 20 minutes outside of Duncan in North Cowichan Valley

We will be working outside in the garden area

Address will be provided to participants

Instructors: Joan Bobyn and Edie Brown

Learn how to dye with indigo and use shibori techniques to create patterns on cloth. All experience levels welcome. You will create shibori samples for dyeing in the indigo dye pot Shibori techniques to review and explore: stitching, pole wrapping, folding, clamping.

Indigo Dye Pot Kakishibu: stitch on fabric samples, one-two dips into dye pot. On the second day continue with indigo dyeing and shibori and/or final dip(s) into kakishibu, optional final dip into ferrous sulphate bath, thread removal.

"Supply list of what people need to bring to the workshop:

• Bring a lunch
• wear comfortable clothes and shoes that are ok to get stained. Apron, too, if you like...
• sweater/jacket if it is chilly weather
• old hand towels (2 at least)
• heavy-duty gloves that extend to mid-arm
• bucket or washbasin and plastic bags to transport wet items home

What to bring for stitching (shibori):

• sewing needles and scissors
• Important: extra strong, heavy duty upholstery thread (Coats and Clark brand is available at Fabricland or other sewing store) - black upholstery thread is easier to work with on white/light color fabrics.
• For kakishibu, sashiko thread and needles. Upholstery thread will work well also.

What is provided:

• 1 ½ meters of Pima cotton fabric for each person (I will scour and cut fabric into smaller sizes to use for shibori samples
• Shibori instructions for pole wrapping, stitching, and folding, clamping, binding
• 3 m cotton kimono fabric (15” wide) per person, to be cut into 1m lengths or as desired
• Kakishibu instructions and list of sources
• Tools and supplies available to use during the workshop:
• Buckets for indigo dye, clothesline and pins to hang cloth outside to dry
• wrapping poles
• twine to wrap cloth on poles
• clamps
• elastic bands
• marbles
• wood blocks
• clothes pins and line to hang items
• buckets and a hot plate"

Edie Brown expresses a state of mind within the context of meditation and contemporary fibre art. She started dyeing and stitching in 1995, first exhibiting in 2003. Her work is both on and “off the wall”. Edie finds delight, playfulness, and joy in stitching, beading, dyeing, and other surface design techniques. There is a quiet place where “speaking in cloth” intersects with meditation in daily life. What do we touch and what touches us? Edie enjoys exploring entanglements, an opportunity to understand what is most important. The journey takes her on a path of discovering a visual language for that which can’t be named.

Website: www.ediebrown.com

Joan Bobyn is a retired pharmacist, mother of 6, grandmother of 9, maker and lover of all things textile-related. She has sewn since the age of 10, and since moving to Victoria in 2013 has taken up kilt-making, spinning, weaving, natural dyeing, botanical printing and creation of fibre art with a passion. Joan makes her art on woven backgrounds, adding found objects from nature, often including beeswax from her daughter’s hives. She has a special interest in Japanese arts such as kami-ito yarn, shifu weaving, momigami paper-kneading and kakishibu dyeing

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feelingthreads/