After the dyeing came a quick day of Shibori and indigo dyeing with Year 5's. As you can imagine, shibori even in it's simplest form with 60 children was a challenge. 'Make sure you have a knot at the end of your thread before you start stitching!!" was my mantra of the day. 'Keep the designs simple' and 'draw them in your art books so you remember which one is yours after it has been dyed and all look the same'. I didn't shut up all day.
The children had done some research into indigo dyeing, so they knew more than me about it, I just knew it was magic!
After the stitching we went outside in small groups and gently put the samples in the dye bath. I say we, I was the one doing the work, they just watched and wooed with wonder.
Needless to say, with a day of dyeing in rubber gloves, I have no photo's of the work on that day.
However!
The next stage was designing their letter and drawing it with fabric crayons. Looking good.
Then some could stitch round if they wished, some did some didn't. I find it depends upon not whether they are girls or boys, rather which was the wind is blowing and what lesson they might be missing as to whether they are keen to stitch.
Give them credit though, they are all keep to do their best and the work looked lovely.
Some salt sprinkling came to mind and the salty squares were born.
Love this, they give a great contrast with the other techniques going on in the quilt, the children added African inspired letters which I will appliqué onto of their squares - appliqué? Was I planning to do that? No, but hey ho, for the good of the quilt, whats 60 appliqué letters to add to the pile of work.
Fun with Year 1's. I shall leave it at this photo, we had great fun. Dripping, swirling and STOP! I need to take a print of that one! Great fun.
A few of their squares drying, they add brightness to the quilt.
No comments:
Post a Comment