I spent a few days last month playing with Indigo dye. It had been a long time since I had done dying of any sort and I had a great time. The first day I did it with my friends Chris and Ruth then I did tons more on my own.We used a new Pre-Reduced Indigo that is put out by Jacquard. It's very easy to use and the dye bath can be used for several weeks.
The kit is very inexpensive and dyes a lot of fabric. I ended up with more than 30 extra large fat quarters (about 20" x 30") as well as some 1/2 yard pieces and yardage. I died 100% cotton broadcloth, cotton artists canvas and cotton gauze. These two pieces are some of my favorites. The first one was block resisted in a square form and soaked in the bath for about 20 minutes then refolded in a triangular form and re-soaked for another 20 minutes. The second piece was pole wrapped, Shibori style on a 2" wide piece of PVC pipe and soaked in the bath for about 15 minutes.
I will be playing with more Indigo dying then will over paint a lot of the pieces using a deep, blood red and a dusky, dirty yellow and hope to make working with these fabrics my next series. I will be teaching these techniques this next quarter. Summer is the perfect time to build up a stash of painted and dyed fabrics!
Don't you just love exploring textiles!
Till next time,
Heather
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