Another discovery from the depths of the office — a design I drew at lifesize for a onsie. Since I still have a couple onsies in the fabric stash…

One of the techniques Jane uses in her Complex Cloth workshops is the use of stamps to apply thickened dye, paint or discharge agents to fabric. When I showed my son the stamps I had carved from soap erasers and carving blocks, his eyes went wide with the possibilities for his own uses. Since the class (almost two weeks ago now) I have made a habit of carving one or two stamps each day. My process now is to sketch an idea out on paper then duplicating it in Illustrator so I can scale the same image for use as a small stamp (under 1″ square), a medium stamp (up to 3″ square) or create an image for use on a silk screen.

Below are four stamps I recently carved. The first stamp is a flower in a woodcut style, the second is a whimsical face my 4 year old drew directly on one of the stamps for me. I redid it in illustrator so I could scale it up to use the entire eraser surface, as he originally drew it somewhat smaller. The next stamp is a monkey face that my wife sketched out for our son. The last stamp is for a series of fabric I plan to do based on the local area.

Another nice thing about using Illustrator for the designs is that I can print the designs on the inkjet, dampen the receiving stamp’s surface and then press it onto the printed image. After a minute of firm pressure the image is transferred to the stamp as a guide for carving. This also makes it very easy to create stamps with images that must have a specific orientation like lettering — such as the last stamp.

Well, a lot has happened, let’s see a broken finger, another “sure thing” that didn’t pan out, a few visits to the Aquarium, raised two broods of butterflies…

Broken finger — right ring finger, playing that incredibly dangerous game of frisby with my 4 year old. Don’t ask.

So on to the new stuff…

I just ordered a whole ton of silk to do up. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a new venture. I have sold 4 scarves so far (out of less than a dozen I have made) so if this continues it could be good. Most of the scarves right now are being made using shibori techniques. Hopefully soon I can rig up an area where I can stretch out scarves to be able to apply resists through katagami.

The scarf above is an example of both itajime, and kikkō. Kikkō is the tortoise shell pattern and represents the tortoise, a very auspicious symbol. According to Japanese folklore, the tortoise lives for 10,000 years and thus is a symbol of longevity, happiness and wisdom. The tortoise is also a symbol of the Japanese Buddhist deity Fukurokuju, the god of wisdom, wealth, and longevity. The kikkō pattern is obtained using one of the oldest shibori techniques, itajime. The fabric is folded in a specific pattern then clamped tightly between boards before dyeing.

Things are turning around here, I’ve been talking with a local store owner who is opening a second store. After talking about fabric decoration (he carries a good bit of batik) he expressed interest in seeing some of the stuff I have been doing. Since most of my work lately has been straight shibori, I took some in for him to see. He was genuinely excited about the possibilities. Some of what I had (mostly fabric yardage as opposed to finished garments) to show would fit perfectly in his current store (casual spring and summer wear) but mostly he was interested in the things that would go for the new store, which he is aiming at higher end–more linens and silks. We talked today a bit about my influences and the direction I would like to take it– further exploring and combining rōketsuzome (wax resist), shibori (bound resist) and katazome (stencil pasted resist) in pieces.

So now I have to figure out how to carve a genuine studio out an apartment guest bathroom. Luckily I have some silk and linen on hand, enough for a handfull of scarves and some loose men’s shirts. With Tammy’s seamstress skills she might be able to squeeze one summer dress out of the linen as well. Of course this also means I will need to buy or rig a safe steamer for silk, invest in acid dyes and find some larger poles (and the space to use them) for arashi, not to mention get scales and fabric. Man, it’s good to have these types of problems! They’re sort of sweet worries, as opposed to sour ones!

The sample above is being used to create “ditty” bags for knitters and other craft people. It is heavy cotton canvas, 9″ wide. The circular patterns are bai shibori. Conical peaks of cloth are gathered up and roughly shaped with the fingers, then bound with sprial wrapping of thread (in this case artificial sinew) up the peak of cloth and back securing it at the base of the cone. The meandering lines are created with awase-nui shibori, a stitched technique in which two folds of fabric are created and stitched together. The stiches end up going through 4 layers of the fabric, in this case where the valley between the folds is very shallow it creates a strong central resist along with the broken resists on either side. When using the same technique to create a shippō-tsunagi pattern, the elliptical shape of the valley allows more dye penetration, often with very interesting patterning.

Hmmm… I wonder if I could get the VA to allow me to use my GIBill to attend the Kyoto Seika University‘s Textile Design Department? Probably not…

Sometimes found with the name fundoutsunagi, this is a design that dates at least to the Nara period (645-794), like the shippō design. It has been used in woven textiles such as twills and brocades, along with dyed textiles and sashiko. I have tried this one successfully using ori-nui shibori (stitched resist) and am currently working on a piece of linen to execute it in awase-nui shibori (stitched resist that stitches through two parallel folds of cloth to produce a pocket between them—commonly used to execute a shippō design element).

The design and the name come from the shape of one of the traditional counterweights used on scales in Japan. Fundo literally means “weight” and tsunagi means “link”. I have also seen shippō written as shippō-tsunagi.

fundo-tsunagi on indigo
(12×12 pixels)

fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(12×12 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi on indigo
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fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(24×24 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi with indigo background
(48×48 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(48×48 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi with indigo background
(96×96 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(96×96 pixel)

two tone grey fundo-tsunagi background pattern
(96×96 pixel)

If some of the images appear blank—just a thin line frame around nothing—then your browser (most likely IE) has an issue displaying transparent .png files. The image is there, right click on the “empty” box and “Save Picture As” or “Save Target As”.

So a small update for that two hours spent this evening on the stencil. In blue is the work done earlier, in purple/pink is tonights work. I have noticed that sharpening my blade every 20–30 minutes makes a huge difference in the ability to easily cut details like the chrysanthemum flower that has tight curves. I will be trying out some surgical blades soon, loaned to me from a jewelry designer along with a catalog of some other tools used in his industry. That one will probably require far less frequent re-sharpening. I’m not entirely sure if that is good or bad, but it’s worth checking out.

Tomorrow I thik I will add another web interpretation of a traditional pattern to the site.

Below is another significantly reduced image—the active part (in other words without the border) 9.5×3.65 inches, about two thirds the size of the 1694 original—of the stencil, the areas that are blue are what I cut yesterday and last night, in two sessions, totalling four to five hours. I did make one significant mistake—I should have started in the upper left corner to reduce the chances of any damage while working the rest of the pattern. The cutting is being done in two stages: first the finer detail work, then the larger open sections. This is done to keep the pattern as stable as possible. If I tried to cut everyting in the same pass, the chance of tearing out some of the finer bridges and details would be significantly higher.

Unfortunately, I am not able to do the pattern onto shibugami, the laminated and persimmon juice tanned mulberry paper traditionally used for stencil carving. The production of shibugami appears to be trailing off, and I imagine that most of what is produced is reserved for the few traditional katagami carvers left in Japan (many of them designated as National Treasures). I have no idea if this stencil will hold up to more than a few pastings as it is being carved from heavy card stock. I hope that I am wrong, but the only source I know for blank shibugami paper is having a hard time getting a steady supply of it.

In the detail images you can see the bishamon patterns executed in cut gold leaf (kirikane). In the center detail you can see a variant of the bishamon pattern on the belly and thigh armour of Bishamon-ten.

In the pattern detail you can see a variant of the shippō or “seven treasures” design as an all over design.

Also notice the background pattern in use at the museum’s site. It is a drill carved (kiribori) stencil inspired design. In fact this oldest of Japanese stencil carving techniques lends itself perfectly to web background patterns as most kiribori designs are repeating patterns known as komon. Often the carver would create a small template called a kohon (lit. “small book”) that was used to ink the repeating pattern onto the larger stencil. The final komon generally consisted of 8–12 repeats of one kohon. A standard komon stencil size was 15cm x 40 cm (approx. 5×15 inches). This stencil would be repeated the entire length of the bolt of fabric being dyed—often over 100 repeats. More on all that later if anyone is interested…

This pattern is from a traditional Japanese design called shippō or “seven-treasures”. The interlocking circles of shippō are said to represent the seven treasures of Bhuddism. Similar linked circle designs are found in many cultures through-out the world. The shippō or shippō-tsunagi(lit. linked seven tresures) design has been used as a motif in Japanese textile decoration since at least the Nara period (645-794). It is quite possible it was in use long before that, but there are few surviving samples of textiles from before then. A piece of fabric exists in the Shōsō-in collection with a similar shippō design done in shibori.

p. Shippō motifs are used in all forms of textile decoration, and are often used as an all over background pattern in a subtle color shift from the ground color, with the main designs layed above. This particular variant of the shippō motif is based on a stencil found in the excellent book Carved Paper – The Art of the Japanese Stencil.

shippō on indigo
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shippō with transparent background
(20×20 pixel)

shippō with indigo background
(40×40 pixel)

shippō with transparent background
(40×40 pixel)

shippō with indigo background
(60×60 pixel)

shippō with transparent background
(60×60 pixel)

If some of the images appear blank—just a thin line frame around nothing—then your browser (most likely IE) has an issue displaying transparent .png files. The image is there, right click on the “empty” box and “Save Picture As” or “Save Target As”.