I initially met Sabine Spare, the designer behind the Toronto based brand Spare Label, during Made Inland 2017. Her design aesthetic resonated with me and I was obsessed with her technique almost immediately. Her entire line consists of marbled designs. Marbling is a century old technique of treating fabric with dyes. It originated in Japan and was later adopted by Asia, Turkey, and the Middle East. The end result is a surface design that resembles patterns found in stone such as marble.
Sabine and I got talking and she told me that she also offers Marbling workshops to teach individuals how to marble. I signed up on the waitlist right away. Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to try Sabine’s Marbling 101 Workshop in the Spare Label Studio. I had such a blast – I felt like a kid again! I didn’t realize how much I missed doing DIY projects. I’ll summarize the steps below but if you want to find out how to do it in detail, you will have to try out Sabine’s Workshop.
Step 1: Prep the fabric (pre-wash/pre-treat) and prepare the medium in a vessel for marbling
Step 2: Clean off the medium
Step 3: Mix your paint colours and drop your paint on to the medium
Step 4: Using marbling tools, create patterns in the paint
Step 5: Lay your fabric on the surface of the medium (this applies the pattern)
Step 6: Lift your fabric up
Step 7: Rinse fabric in cool water, ring, and dry.
