I'm Hooked!

 

I just spend a fabulous long weekend up in New Smyrna Beach at the Atlantic Center for the Arts' beautiful campus taking Linda Dawson's Shibori Dyeing workshop. It was one of the workshops offered before the week long Focus on Fiber Retreat. Kathie Briggs taught the other workshop, on doll modifications. You can learn about the retreat at Mary McBride's blog.

Linda is a fabulous teacher, very patient answering all our questions and coming up with solutions for our silly mistakes like me forgetting about the soda ash. She was so flexible too as she easily changed her plans to cover any areas where we had more interest. And she covered WAY MORE than just shibori dyeing. We painted on paper and transferred to polyester, tried out her pleater, silk screened, used several different dyes and techniques such as vat dyes, decolorant, fiber etch, burn out and others. Below is sheer fabric coming off the pleater.

The indigo pot was such fun. Below is a scarf shortly after unfolding and exposing it to the air. That neon-like green turned blue as we watched!
Next is one of Sherryl's beautiful pieces done on rope.

 Kay Sorensen was in our class and has been doing a series over at her blog so head over if you'd like to see lots more photos and learn more.

 What a great weekend, meeting so many wonderful fiber artists, learning so much about dyeing and enjoying such a gorgeous setting. The only problem is I'm now hooked on dyeing and will have to figure out where I'm going to dye, probably outside, an advantage of southern living and where I'll find the time! Sorry clay, I love you dearly but I have to share my time with fiber. That said I need to get back to the clay this week.

If you're interested in learning about Shibori, this month 3 Creative Studios has guest artist Brenda Gael Smith and Serendipity Shibori.