Stitched Shibori by Jane Callender

Stitched Shibori book by Jane Callender

The complete guide to shibori dyeing, packed with techniques, designs and inspiration

This bestseller contains all the information a beginner will need to get started – including tips on dyeing in small spaces and a guide to all the necessary health and safety considerations – but is also packed with innovative techniques and inspiring designs that will appeal to the experienced textile artist.

Written by eminent shibori artist and expert shibori teacher Jane Callender, this beautiful, practical book is packed with both traditional and inventive stitch-resist techniques, a complete dyeing guide and an inspirational gallery of Jane’s work.

The book is broken into three sections. The first shows you all the key stitch-resist techniques you need – from the basics right through to creating intricate designs and all are clearly explained with photography and illustrations. Learn how to create a range of different shibori styles, oversew, make circles and other shapes, use grids, double needles, stencils and caps, bind fabrics, work with machine stitch, use fabric buffers and incorporate appliqué.

The second section shows you how to use motifs to create pattern: learn how to create and position designs, including traditional arrangements such as Karamatsu and Tatewaku, create composite designs and get tips on how to plan your own patterns.

Finally, the book contains a complete guide to dyeing with recipes, tips and advice so that you can get the very best from every dye bath you make. Learn how to dye with both natural and synthetic indigo, in organic and synthetic vats. Also choose from a wide range of natural dyes, iron rust and dazzling Procion dyes, which can be used in combination or alone for amazing effects.

We cover much of the book’s contents in my online Shibori Stream course. Watch the video below to find out more:

Publication information

Publisher: Search Press
Edition: BC Paperback
Publication: Jan 31 2017, 2nd edition August 31
ISBN 13/EAN: 9781782211419
Size: 216×280 mm
Illustrations: 950
Pages: 176
RRP Price: £19.99

Ways to buy

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£19.99

STITCHED SHIBORI FOREWORD (March 2016)

by Jenny Balfour Paul
Hon. Research Fellow, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University
President, Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers

Jane Callender is a remarkable person, and this is reflected in her work.

Slowly, quietly, and with determination and discipline, she has for three decades immersed herself in the fascinating craft and art of shibori, earning worldwide respect and admiration for her exceptional skills. Through her textiles, her teaching and her writing she has raised the profile in the West of techniques and design possibilities long since relished in other cultures.

When I was helping the curator Jennifer Harris to select exhibits for the major touring exhibition ‘Indigo: A Blue to Dye For’, put on by Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery, Callender was the only British shibori artist whose creations were more than a match for the best from Japan, a country considered the ‘home’ of the most superior shibori. Not only is her work as refined as that of the foremost Japanese artists, but she has also invented her own designs that are acknowledged as being on a par with the most intricate traditional Japanese pieces. Her lifelong abilities in stitching, begun in her childhood, are often combined with other resist techniques to brilliant effect. This combination of technical mastery and innovation is a great achievement.

Callender and I share a mentor, Susan Bosence, who was a renowned block-printer and resist-dyer. She handed on to us her particular passion for indigo, a dyestuff with a unique chemistry and beauty. Indigo’s extraordinary – almost magical – quality makes it a perfect partner for shibori; indeed it is a match made in heaven. Bosence had a collection of indigo-dyed shibori examples from many countries that inspired her own work, as well as a deep love of nature and geometric patterns that Callender shares and has taken to new heights. There is an indefinable integrity about lives dedicated to such craftsmanship.

Shibori can be created with various dyes but its affinity with indigo is well known and Jane has mastered to perfection the subtleties of dyeing with indigo. It requires practice and love to fully exploit indigo’s wonderful potential to provide on a single piece of cloth a range of shades from the palest azures of the sky to the deepest blues of the ocean.

Decades of painstaking practice, thought and experimentation are gathered into this gorgeous book, which is much more than a handbook, since it includes innovative designs and techniques and celebrates a lifetime’s experience. It will become a classic on shibori, widely consulted worldwide and savoured and treasured for years to come.

A look inside the book

Be guided through the first steps of creating stitched shibori. Design tools will make the task quicker and easier. Many basic stitch techniques are shown as are different approaches to pulling up the threads to secure a resist prior to dyeing.

Various indigo dye recipes are included – natural chemical and organic vats as well as synthetic indigo and many indigo dye techniques are shown and discussed. There is a chapter introducing natural dyes and recipes such as myrobalan shown above, as well as the effects of iron rust as a mordant and as a dye in its own right.

From simple stitching on single thickness fabric the book explores the many options of dealing with folds and the results that can be achieved.

Natural dyes hold their own against the vibrancy of fibre reactive dyes, here showing a hand painted application. Shining out from a dark indigo ground stitch is combined with the itajime technique. A chapter is given to motif development and further attention is given to the use of modifiers in the chapter on natural dyes.

Jane’s clear diagrams are used throughout the book to compliment and clarify the written instruction.

Reviews

Édition français

Nui Shibori – Technique, innovation, motifs, design

Les éditions de saxe

Écrit par la grande artiste et spécialiste du shibori Jane Callender, ce magnifique ouvrage pratique sur le nui shibori présente des techniques à la fois traditionnelles et innovantes, un guide complet sur la teinture et des exemples inspirants issus du travail de lˊauteur. Ce livre est divisé en trois parties: les techniques, les morifs et las teinture. De nombreuses techniques de reserve par couture – utilisées seules ou combines à dˊautres methods propres au shibori – sont expliquées en detail, avec photos et illstrations à l’appui. Vopus apprendrez à élargir les techniques pour developer des motifs et pratiquer un art textile unique. La partie sur la teinture donne des explications précises quant à la preparation et au proceed, permettant de réaliser les réserves de shibori dans une large gamme de couleurs sur des tissus naturels. Vous y trouverez des recettes pour les cuves d’indigo naturel et synthétique, les teintures naturelles et les colorants fibro-réactifs. Toutes ces précieuses couleurs peuvent être utilisêes seules ou combines à l’indigo.

Ce livre de reference complet offer toutes les informations nécessaires pour les débutants qui souhaitent s’initier à l’art du shibori. Il regorge également de techniques et d’idées innovantes qui raviront et inspireront les artistes textiles plus expérimentés.

French edition of Stitched Shibori by Jane Callender
French edition of Stitched Shibori by Jane Callender