machine stitched mokume shibori

This weekend I felt like my brain had reached a dead end and needed some recharging so it seemed high time to take a break from working for work and do a little work for fun.

When I do color crosses and dye tests, I dye 1/4 yard of fabric for each color, so I've ended up with quite a few 1/4 yard pieces floating around the studio. Some of these have found homes in other projects, but I had a number of red and berry tones just screaming to be used.

I sewed a bunch of these pieces up using a machine stitched arashi mokume shibori technique (a straight stitch that's gathered). I overdyed all of the pieces using a fuchsia/chocolate brown mix to unite all of the different red tones.

Here's a peek at the results.

I'm really pleased with this. I used up a bunch of small pieces of fabric that I had floating around and now I definitely have enough to piece a new top. I also really like the depth of the colors and patterns. I love bright and bold (as I'm sure you've noticed) but I was starting to feel like I was missing some subtlety, and I think I've achieved it here.Yay!

I've been working on some ideas for new sets, and I think this more-or-less two tone color scheme will work fabulously with one of them. I can't wait to get started.