Minerva Network: Shibori-ish tee

Shibori tee

Here’s my Minerva make for this month! I went a bit off-piste and used some plain cotton lawn fabric and Dylon dye with the intention of dyeing it myself in a kind of shibori style. The heat of summer made me really notice and appreciate the difference in breathability between natural and synthetic fibres, and this combed lawn is ever so soft and breezy.

Shibori tee

I’m so pleased with how the dye job came out. I didn’t take any process photos i’m afraid, but it was very simple. I just pleated both pieces in different ways, dunked them in the dye and salt mix for about half an hour, rinsed and left to dry.

Shibori tee

I started both with a piece half a metre long to be more manageable for folding. For the right hand side one here I folded it into 2″ pleats selvedge to selvedge, then clipped clothes pegs all along the length of the concertina to hold it in place (inspired by this project). For the other one I made wider pleats, then pleated the other way at 45-degree angles to make a fat triangle shape, then again used clothes pegs to hold the edges in place. Pretty spooky how it turned out with definite skull faces, right? The dye colour was Antique Grey by the way, but I like the greenish tint it came out with. The joy of dye, you never know quite what you’ll get.

Shibori tee

I wanted a simple top to showcase the dye job, so dug out the old See Kate Sew Zippy top. Sans zip, but with rolled cuffs which I achieved just by cutting the sleeves about 1.5″ longer, pressing back 1cm then again by 1″ and topstitching down. There’s something about the shoulders and hang of this pattern that I just love.

Shibori tee

I seamed my dyed panels back together, and after a bit of draping in the mirror decided to run the join up the centre to show both dye jobs next to each other. All the seams are Frenched and the neckline is finished with bias binding.

If you fancy a bit of DIY dyeing too, you can find the plain cotton lawn fabric and Dylon dye on Minerva. You can also see some more dye inspiration and tutorials on my Pinterest board.

30 thoughts on “Minerva Network: Shibori-ish tee

  1. ute

    I want this shirt! It turned out so great! I have to quote oona: DO NOT EVER WEAR THIS NEAR ME! YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF NEKKID!!!

  2. Mia

    This looks great! I’ve been wanting to try shibori recently too. Love the idea of two different dye patterns put together like this.

  3. lisa g.

    it is absolutely inspired to combine two different dye patterns! wow, i love it so much. i’ve been curious to try some shibori-style dying after seeing several around the blogs. great make!

    1. Katie Post author

      Thank you. I’ve done more dyeing since that was even more successful and created some amazingly intricate patterns (I keep seeing faces in them!). I’ll share soon.

  4. Ginger

    Absolutely lovely! Dyeing really is so fun and mysterious… I love that there’s always an element of unpredictability! It’s nice to cede control and just see what comes out of the dye bath!

  5. Sara

    This is so cute! I really want to try my hand at shibori-esque dyeing, but I’m a little nervous I’ll just wreck a bunch of fabric instead of being successful…

  6. Sam

    Wow! This is fantastic. I love the way you’ve used the 2 differently dyed panels. Definitely looks like you’ve paid lots of money for it in some cool boutique.

  7. Emma

    This is great! I love the effect of the dye and the cut of the top really sets it off. I’m always pretty intimated by dye, probably because it is so unpredictable with what you’re going to get.

  8. Adrienne

    This turned out sooo beautiful. You make it sound so easy, but I somehow doubt that it can be that easy. :-) I bet you’re just really really skilled at this.

  9. mokosha

    i wanna steal your shirt! what a beautiful job on dyeing that fabric! and how cool that you got skulls! i never tried dyeing anything, but you’re inspiring me to give it a try

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