My fishy T-shirt

This is another old project again.

I have made it 2 years ago. I did Irish step dance at that time. Unfortunately I had an accident and my ankle is not perfect so I had some problem with it, and I stopped dancing. Since then I have knee problems as well but I so hate doctors I don't dare to visit them and show them my legs. I know I am stupid but I hope they will become better somehow without doctors and medicines. I do not have problems with playing basketball so I am for it now and I hope once I can go back to step dance.

Irish dancers use black clothes that is why I chose a simple black T-shirt from the nearest cheap sports shop. One of my teacher was a fish-lover person so I decided to make a T-shirt with fishes. I am not very good at drawing so I found some pics about fishes. I draw them and not copied totally so finally they were a bit of my 'taste' and style.

It is a very simple design I used only white. The tricky part is that I used puffy dye so they bilge. (You have to wait for drying then iron it to become puffy.) The dye looks white but it is fluorescent. I looked quite funny in a dark room. It is simple but the contrast and the puffy fishes make it special so it became one of the favourites of my teacher. Unfortunately it is not so nice now after lots of washing. (The good thing is that you can take off the 'half gone' fish and draw another instead. I am not worried at all - I still have some of the dye so I can 'refresh' the T-shirt.)

More dyed fabrics...

Oh, sorry I was late with this post. Last time I promised some more photos about last week's dyeing. So you have already seen arashi shiboris.

Now I have to show you the bomaki.
I used a tray for that and put some different dyes. They mixed in the tray and made funny colours for me. Isn't is fun?
Here is my 'cake'. I used orange, red and a mixture (wanted to be bourdon, but it is something like eggplant purple). It wanted to be a fire at the end.... I didn't have to fold the fabric, because this was it is not like a fire, but maybe after cutting it in halves it can be.
These are my fabrics.... Not perfect fire, but I still like them.

I have tried to make a bomaki of cobalt, turquoise and yellow. Here it is:



This is just some cobalt blue dyed in a plastic bag (will suit perfectly to my stormy sea quilt, this can be the border):

This is purple-like something (mixed by me) with the same technique.It is annoying how ugly this is in the picture. Believe me, it is much nicer in real life... It has some really very nice colours... But it is impossible to take a nice photo about it... it seems....
And these are my pieces.... You know rags for cleaning dyes....:D This day I made really nice rags. At least I am pleased with them.
This one was my first one and ma favourite. I am thinking about making a scissors holder of it. But maybe it is not big enough. sigh....


These have strange dark colours. The first one reminds me of the globe.

This one was a white fabric with white pattern on it, but I used a mixture of yellow and turquoise and dyed it green. It is strange because the wrong side has nicer colour now (I think). in this pic you can see both sides and decide which one you prefer. (This colour is also much nicer in real life...)

Yipppiii! They are finished...

Finally I could finish the washing, drying and ironing... So I can proudly tell you my fabrics are here.

Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon with them (I really hate it at the end), and now I have a terrible pain in my wrist. That washing was too much for me I think. (It is annoying because I am in a hurry, I have to sew a lot this week.)

Today I washed the last two pieces and ironed the others.
And the best part: I have made these pictures.This is a technique called shibori. I rolled the fabric on the pipe and tied strings on it (1.5 - 6 cm of each other). Then I crinkled it with the help of the string. I dyed the background colour (it is usually the lighter) and after half an hour of waiting I spread the darker colour (colour of the stripes). I put plastic foil around. That was all. My pipe is 1 m long so I could make 4 fabrics. Here you can see them foiled.


Here is the fabric on the pipe without foil before washing.
Here are the fabrics in the machine waiting for the others.

This is the one I opened first. I used light green and dark violet. Finally it turned out green and brown. (I am going to try to make new photos in sunshine as colours are totally different in real life.)

This is the second one, turquoise and cobalt blue.

This is a closer one just to show the pattern.

For the third one I used red and a darker colour. I wanted to mix bourdon but it turned out dark violet.

And this was the last one on the pipe. Yellow and dark red on top. (This is my favourite I think)

This is the last fabric I want to show you today. It was made on a thinner pipe, the colours are the same as on the first one.

I think this is enough for today. The fabrics of other techniques will be shown tomorrow.
I loved my fabrics so much, but now I have a problem, I don't know which is the nicest or which one to like the best. Which one do you like the best?