KUDOS to Judy who hosted our indigo dye day. Thankfully she must have prayed to the weather gods because we had perfect weather....sunny, breezy, and not too hot.
My determination to use gloves at all times was pretty much forgotten the first time I had to removed the knots from a rope of indigo soaked fabric.
We've never played with wax when we've indigo dyed in the past, so thanks to Judy and Kate....we did this time around. I do love polka-dots! Here Denny is holding my piece just as it came out of the dye pot.....while it is quickly turning from bright green to the lovely indigo blue.
Here are the troublesome knots that were difficult to untie when the fabric is wet.
This fabric was twisted and wrapped onto a thick wood dowel...securing with rubber bands.
An overview of my results....some better than others....but isn't that the thrill of it......ya never know what you are going to get!
I was so busy with my own pieces I didn't do a good job of documenting....perhaps pieces will be brought to share at our Sept. meeting. We tried a couple of different approaches to dyeing this time.
Rather than placing dry fabric into the pot.....we soaked it first in plain water, we also left many of the resists in place for about 30 mins. after coming out of the dye pot. Honestly, I don't know if that provided any better prints or not....in the case of my pieces, I don't think so.....but that could have been just because of the manipulation methods I chose to do. Would I bother with the extra steps in the future? Probably not...... Would love to hear what you all think.
12 comments:
My friend and I did ice dyeing yesterday. I also forgot the gloves, so I am sporting blue fingers today, cerulean to be exact. I am still waiting for the fabric to be done before I rinse out. Last summer, we did indigo dyeing and I was not happy with the color. Turned out, I learned much later that I could have redipped again and again to get the dye darker and bluer. Not sure when I will attempt that again.
Oh ya Linda....the redipping....hard to resist but I think I overdid it on some of my pieces.... just love this technique...but then I'm a sucker for blue!!
Oh mercy, I hope it won't take too long to get that blue off your hands! It is a bit hard to take pictures when you are knee deep in dye.
What a fun day and your results look terrific! I must say that I "cheat" when doing my shibori and use ProChem's navy dye and get the same colors each time. I sent away for some stuff to get the dye off your hands. It is Kresto and it comes in a tube. think I bought it from ProChem, too. Works great!
One of the best things about dyeing is that it's an "inexact science" so you don't know exactly what you're going to get- or even what you did to get it sometimes! I like the dots, and the chevron stripe is interesting. Overdyeing? Great idea. Worth the blue fingers!
I am feeling a very strong need to play with dyes!
Looks like another fun day for the Fiber junkies! Indigo is so much fun when done with friends.
I've only done indigo dying once...quite a process and a lot of prep work but results are worth it aren't they!!! Nice!
Always a treat to see what the Fiber Junkies are up to. Love the results, even your hands.
Indigo is some kind of magic, isn't it. Love seeing all the variety of methods and results.
What's not to love about indigo hands! Stunning results. I like the over dyed with color but I love the indigo only (I think because the contrast and designs are more apparent with the blue and white). Thanks for sharing that fun time.
Looks like you are having a lotta fun messing around, Mary.
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