Using Old Polymer Canes To Create Ikat Pattern

One evening while I was on Facebook, I came across a 2 part tutorial by https://www.facebook.com/Amatistart62/  It shows making an Ikat pattern using old canes and I was hooked!  Following is a pictorial with some explanation of the process I used after watching her video.  It's a great video worth watching. 

Many of us have old canes that we aren't sure what to do with but don't want to toss them or smash them up for scrap.  I found this to be a very interesting way to use them. 

These are the two canes I decided to use.  

I flattened the brown flower cane after conditioning by squeezing it

Then I ran it through the pasta machine and the colors stretched into stripes.

The colors are blended by folding the clay color to color and running it through the pasta machine

You can see the subtle pattern.  Thin slices are cut and placed against each other on a black ground.

It is important to use the end cuts next to each other and to shift the pattern slightly.

You can begin to see the Ikat pattern (shifting colors).

The piece on the left is before cutting the thin strips and the piece on the right has been run through the pasta machine to smooth the  surface.  As you can see this is a subtle pattern.

This cane has lots more color and should make a more vivid Ikat design.

I've cut it and stacked the pieces

This is mashed into the start of stripes

Here you can see the stripes after running through the pasta machine.

Look at the ends of the slab to see the colors of the Ikat.  This is the side that will be sliced and placed next to each other.

The top slab before it is cut.  The bottom slab shows the end cuts placed next to each other.

The top slab is ready to be cut into shapes to be cured.  It is smooth from running through the pasta machine and burnishing.

Next week I'll show the finished pieces and a few others from canes I've used to achieve the Ikat effect.