Classes
Karen Illman Miller
Nautilus Fiberarts
Introduction to Katazome - Japanese stencil dyeing with or without indigo dyeing (two days or longer)
Japanese fabrics have been
made for centuries using intricate paper stencils and a resist paste made
of rice flour. Authentic Japanese fabrics using this technique are very
expensive and almost unobtainable in this country. You will learn how
to make these lovely fabrics yourselves, dyeing them with indigo and/or
colored dyes.
First we will carve stencils from Japanese
paper, and apply silk mesh to strengthen them. Then we will learn to make
the resist paste. We will use these stencils as well as some of my stencils
to apply paste to fabric.
I will teach you how to use a variety of traditional
pigments, dyes and textile paints to produce multicolored images on cotton
or silk or linen.
Advanced Stencil Carving Class
The first class will be spent
choosing images and starting to carve. The last class will be spent applying
the silk mesh to your stencils. I will supply a full sheet of stencil
paper, which makes the equivalent of four 11 x 17 stencils. Any image
is fine: abstract, folk images from various cultures, traditional Japanese
patterns etc. I have a huge library of copyright free designs to choose
from. This class is best done as four half-day sessions with time in between.
Indigo Dyeing with Resists (two days)
Indigo requires some kind
of resist, whether mechanical as in shibori, or chemical as in paste or
wax resist. We will explore the various ways of producing patterned fabric
with stitched and wrapped shibori as well as applying rice paste with
paper stencils (katazome). The first day we will concentrate on nui shibori,
the traditional stitched patterns.
The second day we will set up an indigo
vat and dye the fabric we have prepared.