Delve into Embroidery with Shibori to Create a Small Hanging

Let’s look into embroidery with shibori. Love this small hanging I have created. I thought I would share the process with you and give you instructions on how to make some of the shibori elements that I used in the design.

Above all, I have a lot of fun exploring embroidery with my shibori. Stitching into small pieces of my shibori fabrics and seeing what happens. As a consequence, I wanted to share with you this small hanging dyed with indigo and embellished with embroidery.

Stage 1 Creating the Leaf Shapes

This piece evolved from wanting to use the simple leaf shapes I had formed in shibori. Let me show you how I constructed them. It is a simple running stitch on a fold with another line of stitching added.

Shown clearly in the diagram, just take care not to catch the first line of stitching when stitching the second. You can learn how to create these shibori stitches on my online self-paced shibori course.

Stage 2 Putting Shibori Pieces Together

Here I share an image of an early stage, where I decided I wanted to add a small hint of gold. I used gold coloured floss. Subsequently, once the pieces were selected the whole thing was backed onto an old piece of blanket to create some padding.

The circular sun shape is made using boshi shibori, where the shape is stitched around, gathered up round a small piece of dowel and covered in plastic to resist the dye totally.

Stage 3 Stitches Used for Embroidery with Shibori

I used different colour threads but all in shades of blue, gold and greeny brown.

The principal stitches I use are running stitch and seed stitch. Moreover, I love the shibori design to inspire stitch direction. I follow the shape and use the curves and lines to dictate my embroidery stitches. In addition, I added some small ne-maki circles in ochre. I hope they suggest berries or fruit.

Stage 4 Finishing Embroidery Touches

In conclusion, I love feather stitch and used these to create the hedgerow, along a row of ori-niu shibori pattern.   Finally, the finished hanging needs to be hung from a dowel or twig. The final step I still need to do!

I hope this may inspire you to use small shibori fabric pieces. Here is another blog to look at if you want to explore the idea further.