Sunday, February 10, 2008

Mokume Ginko Redux


I was excited with the results from my previous tries with heat set Shibori and of course I had about 65 new ideas based off of it... Sooo... I picked one to play with.

Using Mokume Shibori I revisited the ginko design and tried heat setting it.


Here it is step by step:


1. scetched the ginko design on poly fabric and stitched it using the


Mokume (wood grain) technique, running stitches, in this case following the curve of the design.


2. Once the entire design was stitched I pulled the stitches and tied them off to create the resist effect.


3. I heat set the design by submerging it in water and microwaving it for 6 minutes on high ( 3 min at a time for safety)


4. Once it was heat set I removed the stitches, I didn't even let it dry you can see the water droplets on it.


It looks much better with dramatic lighting!

5. I finally decided to try cutting out the shape and singing the edge to keep it from unraveling, leaving (ha!) me with this sculptural form

I really like it, now I have to decide how to use it in a larger piece of work!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

that completely rocks! nice work, nice leaf, great experiments

alsokaizen said...

Oh Lee you made my day, I'm glad you like them!

X by Leina Neima said...

I fell in love with this experiment when I saw it first time in Flickr... So happy to read a bit more about it - great work!

Anonymous said...

http://myginkgotree.com/?p=350
Blogged your beautiful piece on my Ginkgo Centric Blog.

alsokaizen said...

Thanks Colleen
I'm pleased you like it!

Fascia Berlin said...

I am nuts - I put the cloth (after doing the stitching and pulling threads) into a glass of water - took it out and placed it on a place and microwaved it - went somewhere else in the house and heard something.Well, of course, the plate broke into pieces and there was this hard plastic-like stuff on my piece. However, t came out great once I cut those pieces off. Next time, I'll read the directions more closely - thanks for this great tutorial.