Accidentally on Purpose

Mark making is drastically altered when I get sloppy. I'm fleeing the vertical stripes of careful folding. Here are 4 details of the same piece resulting from the fabric at left before wrapping. Whole piece is 10 feet long, silk dupioni. Just wrapped another piece tonight with more haphazard folds. Humidity is 56% and it's in the 70s now. Tomorrow will be 98. A relief from the 100+ days we've been having in the midwest. Rusting will not break any time records as before, and at any rate I plan to push this one.

Sampling

Did some experiments the other day with 12" widths of silk dupion and hemp silk.  I like the results and am anxious to try some big stuff this week.

Above: Hemp silk shibori rust, scanned  detail.  Love the texture and the gold/bronze color.  The blurry marks are due in part to the texture of the fabric and the high humidity.  The design reminds me of ikat.   The piece was tied, but I chose to scan an area where that's not obvious.

This is the silk dupion sample.  I can't get over how deep the blacks are. 

Both of these pieces were wrapped with 8 layers for the rust to penetrate.  Harder going for the hemp silk, but I thought when I started out that the dupion was almost of equal weight.  I've used habotai for so many years, did not realize the potential of dupion.  

Rusty bits fresh off the press

Another hour or so and I might have had to kiss this silk good bye--at least for wearing.  I nearly forgot to unwrap the goodies.  Humidity was high and the results are strong.  Silk satin is difficult to photograph--too much shine--and the scarves never want to lay very flat, so I threw these on the scanner and just did details.  All but the last one will be at the EAC gift shop soon.