Itajime Shibori Process

I’ve been working on a commission of 4 coordinating pieces of Itajime Shibori on cotton.
Itajime Shibori is created by pleating, folding, clamping and dyeing the fabric and it can be used to create really lovely repeat patterns. I often use the technique on rice paper for my own digital projects. It’s amazing the variety of patterns that can be achieved with this form of shibori and it’s really fun to do.
I work on pre-scoured and dried cotton sheeting for this type of shibori.
For this set of patterns I used three different folding methods, all started by pleating and pressing the fabric accordion style.

Each pleat is pressed down as it is made.
For the first two I took the pleated strip of fabric and folded it into a series of right triangles each stacked on top of the others, pressing each fold as it is made.
The third was folded into a stack of squares using the same pressing method.
The fourth is a bit different because I pleated it diagonally then folded it into a larger square stack.
Once the fabric was folded into stacks it was tightly clamped using thick card stock and squeezy clamps. Creating neatly pressed stacks of fabric gives each area of exposed fabric equal access to the dye once it is clamped so I’m really careful to take time to fold and press neatly (unless I want an uneven result).
Next the dyes are applied to the exposed areas by dipping or painting using an activated dye solution. I used three densities of navy blue, I wanted a dark pattern but I find that using three densities creates a more dynamic look. These are the resulting patterns.

These two are the Triangular folds

This is the Square foldAnd this is the Diagonal pleat

I really like the variety I got in this batch.