The Process

All the elements that make up a pattern on cloth offer Sally a challenge as a designer: “There needs to be some understanding of color theory, a strong and skillful drawing hand, an awareness of the limits of the manufacturing process, and the eventual function of the cloth. It’s like a puzzle or problem to be solved. After the technical and aesthetic decisions have been made, the resulting cloth takes on a life of its own as it is wrapped, tied, and worn as clothing.”

Inspired by the often unexpected combination of color, scale, and pattern in Japanese textiles, Sally uses a process similar to Japanese process of stencil and paste-resist dyeing. First, the silk cloth is suspended with harite stretcher bars, made taut with shinshi sticks, and then hand painted either with solid or multi-color dyes. Next, after drying the fabric is steamed, washed, and pinned to a padded table for printing. Patterns are then screen-printed in sections down the length of the cloth. Smaller geometric shapes are printed directly on the solid colored fabric while the backgrounds of the larger
motifs are usually printed on the multi-colored cloth allowing the color combinations to emerge as motifs in silhouette. The printed background and hand-painted color combinations define the forms that gives the cloth its rhythm and character.