C is for Machine stitched Color Hue shibori

Inspired by the work and words of some other Surfacing members, I decided to try some machine stitched shibori with Color Hue dyes. Color Hue is an instant strike colorant that requires no setting, so it seemed to be a good choice to play with as I tried machine stitching.

My first experiment was on a 10x17" scrap of habotai. I used my serger, knife up, and made simple lines of ruffled stitching using the differential feed set at 2. As I progressed down the fabric I tried catching multiple layers of previously ruffled areas. Finally, I rolled the fabric into a tube and tied it with some monofiliment line that was handy. I wet the fabric and applied some undiluted ColorHue. The result was disappointing, and the serged stitches were a pain to disassemble.

The second experiment was on the sewing machine. As suggested by Thelma, I loosened the tension and made straight stitches. I used a scarf and sewed multiple wide darts down the length of a 14x60" habotai scarf. The darts were then defined by 2 more lines of stitching. Pulling the bobbin threads was easy. I dip dyed the scarf in yellow and blue. Multiple dips were made on the blue areas. Then I removed the stitches. After photographing the predominantly yellow scarf I decided to overdye the piece in blue to colorize the white areas. The final scarf is predominately green and the stitched resist areas are a very pale blue. I mourned the loss of contrast, but believe the final scarf is still worthy of gifting.

If I repeat this process I will use the same dart stitch design, and use less dilute Color Hue for all parts of the dyeing process so the final product has more contrast. That way the stitched lines would be more obvious.