Anna’s Shibori Birthday
Every year, after the rush of the holidays and the countdown into a new year, I take the opportunity to celebrate my January birthday with a creative party, and I set off on my next spin around the sun with a few of my favorite people. In the past, I have hosted a moody dinner party, spoon carving, pottery, my 10-year business anniversary, a plant party, a Victorian-modern tea party, and in 2020, a gathering all about gatherings— most of which, of course, it turned out we couldn’t actually have.
But what kind of a gathering does one throw after a year like 2020, and still very much amidst a pandemic? In order to design this year’s party, I asked myself what I wanted to celebrate, and what I needed from my community for the year ahead. I decided to celebrate the community itself– with all of these folks that stayed connected with me, keeping me close, even from afar, throughout the year. I knew from the start that the gathering would be virtual, on videochat, as most of my connections had already become throughout the year. I then decided that what I wanted us to create would be a symbolic group hug, a sort of community comfort, for the year ahead. I would have each person dye a square of fabric for me, which I would then sew together into one big, beautiful quilt. A warm hug, from afar.
From there, I planned the logistics. I chose shibori dye, a traditional Japanese form of indigo dyeing, since it was a beautiful way for us all to make a craft together, with infinite variations and the embrace of the perfectly imperfect. I portioned out dye kits and quilt squares and mailed them out. Friends also had to source their own materials like buckets and other things they wanted to dye, so everyone put in a lot of pre-planning for this event. I set a time and date for the zoom party that would cover almost all of the different locations– we had friends join from five time zones in four different countries. And afterwards, I asked them to take photos with their squares before mailing them back to me. It was such a wonderful party with all the warm fuzzy feelings I could’ve asked for, and I’m very grateful to everyone who participated and made this year’s birthday party, despite the distance, one of our best gatherings yet.
Friends with squares!
Here were the main supplies of our dye kit: the Indigo Tie Dye Kit from Jaquard, a bucket, gloves, wood planks and rubber bands for tying the fabric, my quilt squares and other things for dyeing, and a stir stick. Alex and I made an overhead camera setup with his GoPro so we could have a talking camera and a dyeing camera.
My sophisticated laptop stand. And me, dyeing some fabric!
Happy zoom faces!
Thank you to friends for sharing your images of the day as well. My events (and life) are usually so well-documented by myself, but this was really fun to see everyone else’s photos and their participation from afar instead! Here’s Meg with her cat and her backyard deck tie dyeing station.
Stephanie, Lizzie, and Eileen did a socially distanced gathering in Steph’s beautiful garden, and Eileen took so many beautiful photographs of their day!
Kait’s view of my nerdy powerpoint presentation, as the sun sets on the East Coast! Plus some dyed objects resting on a tray at Whitney’s, also in New York.
Alex and some of our dyed objects, in progress.
Two more images from Eileen– with her handsome dog!
And Lizzie line drying some of her creations.
First image from Kristin, and second image from Saira.
First image from Meg and second image from Eileen.
Kait dyed a bunch of linen napkins in such cool and different patterns! As well as shirts for her daughter and husband. So cute.
Here are Alex’s and my dyed shirts.
The babies in onesies are the best! The first image is from Chelsea and second is from Kelly!
Lauren’s son in his long-sleeved tee. And Alex in his sweatshirt.
And finally, Eileen and her matching Maddy with his tie dyed collar!
Such a wonderful birthday party. Thank you again to everyone who participated! We still have a couple of quilt squares that have yet to appear in my mailbox, so we’ll give it them a couple more weeks to hopefully arrive. And then I’ll start quilting and share another post with the final product, soon-ish!
Edited Aug 2021: Here’s the follow-up post with the final quilt!
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She creates beautiful, soft, and timeless imagery while capturing the most fleeting of moments. View her work at annawu.com, follow her daily adventures on instagram, or contact her to book your own session today.