brocade blog post

When I’m feeling my way through fabrics and clothing I often wonder what is a brocade?  Is it embossed, woven, applique, embroidery?

The name , brocade, comes from Italian word broccato, which means “embossed cloth”.

It is a structural reference to when there are groupings of weft strings, along with the structural weft in parts of the design. This was done to give the illusion that the weave was embroidered.

Contemporary “Brocade” has morphed into a trend that is all over the map; it’s very poplular in the home and paper markets and I love the new spin on it in fashion.  It is applied in many different ways ranging from screenpriting to wovens to die cuts.

I love the blurring the lines.

Couch; swankyplanks.com, rug; bronze.rug.nourison.com; bed linnens; Ralph Lauren,

Shibori~

Shibori is everywhere! It has been trending in fashion, Home Products, Paper goods, and doesn’t seem to be going away soon. DIY’ers are going crazy!

Shibori is a Japanese word; a method of creating resists for the dye process using binding, stitching, folding and twisting.

In japan the earliest example of cloth dyed with the shibori technique is from the 8th century. Indigo was the most common dye used with this technique.

Some Terms associated with Shibori are:

Plangi~ a Malay-Indonesian word~the process of gathering and binding cloth.

Bandhani~ and Indian word~ the process of plucking and binding cloth in small points.

Tritik~Malay-Indonesian word~ process of using stitches as a resist.

Arashi~ Japanese word ~the pole wrapping technique.

Itajime~Japanese word~ a shape-resist technique.

credits from top row moving to the right: felt;ecofirstart.com, bedding; Kufrilife.com, ribbons; shiborigirl.wordpress.com, shape resist; flextiles.wordpress.com, shibori dress; stylable.com, accordian resist and thread; filz-indigo.de, indigo resist; japanesetextileworkshops.wordpress.com, tied resist; pinned by pinner, miura shibori, flextiles.wordpress.com