Stones and 3D Shibori

 Over at the "...Fire" blog this month's technique is 3D Shibori.  Here is a link to Nienke's wonderful post on this fun technique.  Apparently if you tie up "stuff" in polyester and boil it, it will change the shape of the fabric.

I was all excited about this and eagerly scouted my local thrift store for polyester scarves.  No, I didn't seem to have any of my own and because it's October in Wisconsin, the only scarves I found were the knitted variety that are supposed to be worn for warmth rather than style.

I did score a beautiful navy blue silk scarf that I'll be using in a future discharge experiment, but I found only one possibly polyester one.  So I got some sheer curtains that appeared to be polyester and gathered up some river stones.  I tied them up and threw them in a pot of boiling water.  I did the same with a scarf that I suspected of being polyester.



I let them boil together for 20 minutes, then plunged them in a bowl of ice water.  When they were cool, I unwound the string and removed the stones.  And it worked!

I did just a corner of the scarf because of its dubious origin.  I'll probably try a different  tying technique on the rest of the scarf.

Here is a closeup of the scarf.  It's still wet in this photo.

And here is the chunk cut from the sheer curtain.  The scarf dyed it blue!  I was thinking that I wanted something like mushrooms on a piece I'm working on, so I plan to try it again with only white fabric in the pot.

I'm linking up with Nina Marie at "Off the Wall Friday."