Today’s project is a crossover between a craft and home decor.  I was invited to create a Shibori project as part of the Create & Share challenge. Shibori is a modified form of tie dying, using indigo dyes.  I wanted to do something a little unexpected to I tackled a lampshade!

There were 6 other bloggers in the challenge and they came up with their own ideas for Shibori.  I also love how the actual pattern in the dye is different for everyone.




For my lampshade, the supplies were pretty easy to find.  I used the Yellow Owl Workshop Textile Kit along with a large piece of muslin from my fabric stash (the kit comes with fabric, but it wasn’t the right dimensions to cover a lampshade. There are other less expensive indigo tie die kits available as well.

The muslin I used was a large rectangle, large enough to wrap around a lamp shade. (I had originally found this white lamp at the thrift store for $8 but the shade wasn’t the right size.. so I bought a new one with the intent of recovering it.) 
For my Shibori, I wanted to use Arashi which is a technique where you wrap and bind your fabric around a pole to get a striped effect.  Arashi actually means “Storm” in Japanese and it is also the name of a Japanese boy band (file that under “unless facts I learned from Kim’s blog.)

You first wrap your fabric around a post (I used PVC pipe) and then loosely wrap it with rope or twine.   Scrunch the fabric down, tightening the twine.  Now add the dye.  My kit came with an applicator, but you could also just pour the dye on.  After letting it dry, I unrolled it from the pipe and then set the dye with the heat of my iron. Once I had the pattern I liked, I used a glue gun to attach the muslin to the lampshade. Because I didn’t add a huge amount of dye to the fabric, it didn’t bleed through all the wrapped layers.  It gave me this layered effect on the lampshade that I love. 
  Shibori has so many different options and styles it would be fun to work on more dyed projects..