Exploring Indigo and Shibori: Four Class Series at Better Than Jam

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Taught by Karin Persan

Karin Persan is a hands on textile designer and maker, working from her store and studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn.  She received her BFA in 2001 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she focused in Fiber and Material Studies.  She formed her line "Better Than Jam" of printed clothing and accessories shortly after graduating, while teaching on the side.  In early 2010 she opened a boutique of the same name, which has since grown to include a communal studio and workshop space.

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Learn the traditional art of shibori dye techniques and magical indigo dye in this extended session.


Normally booked individually, this is a special intensive that will meet once a week for a month at Better Than Jam in Bushwick, allowing for more techniques and skills to be demonstrated and more time to accomplish them!

Day 1
Intro class will focus on creating the indigo vat using pre-reduced indigo, while talking about all natural indigo and the history of the process. 8 traditional Japanese dyeing techniques will be shown including Suji, Itajime, Kanoko, Tegumo, Ne-Maki and Arashi. 

Day 2
You will learn how to balance a vat that's already been started and get into more difficult shibori techniques and fine tune what you have already learned. 
More difficult techniques are shown like Tatsumaki, Miura, Yanagi and Kumo. As well as Nui, a beginner stitch resist.

NOW with a fun addition of color! We'll now go into using fiber reactive dyes. Students will get to choose a few colors and add then to one of their shibori bundles!

Day 3
Our last day of lesson, will focus on stitching work and the organic indigo vat! My favorite by far.
We'll be stitching fabrics to form designs. Nui, Ori-Nui, Maki-Nui, Karamatsu, Guntai, capping, and Boshi will be shown. 

An all-natural batch of indigo will be used for this session, since the stitching will take some time and your pieces will be smaller. In this class you may only bring small pieces of fabric or we have banana size pieces for you to use, included in price. 

Day 4
STUDIO DAY
Students may return as a group or choose to save their studio pass to use at a later date. (If you return with the group you will have access to the instructor, but may not with the studio pass.)

Cancellation policy