Indigo pot

After a winter of sitting my natural indigo pot is being re-awakened. I kept it warm with a fish tank heater over the winter, which seems to have worked. It looks the best it has ever looked. The true test will be some indigo dyeing, hopefully next Sunday. Stay tuned!

Little Red Riding Hood

Another project started on the Saori loom. A pretty array of indigo blues and kakshibu in muga silk, cotolin, bamboo.... The fibres were dyed last summer with Jean in her beautiful backyard. I am thinking of making a bath robe. We watched the new Red Riding Hood movie and Red Riding Hoods robe inspired me. We shall see!

Online indigo resources

Indigo dye, a natural dye that requires either natural fermentation or a chemical based environment to become active. There are several online resources that will do better justice than I can:

• Link to online scanned copy of Shibori: the inventive art of Japanese shaped resist dyeing, starting at page 275
• Link to Maiwa indigo data sheet
• Link to a blog from a gentleman living in Japan who maintains natural indigo pots and often provides some insight to his technique
• Link to my weaving instructor's blog who also does indigo and other natural dyeing

 Enter the beautiful world of indigo, it is a fascinating place.

Indigo dyeing

This is my second attempt at natural indigo. The first time I used indigo, bran and madder but it didn't really take off, aside from the smell! I abandoned it and let things rest until a lady came in the shop and shared that she had success using dates. This combined with wrapping it in layers of woolen blankets in a rubber maid and a fish tank water heater resulted in my vat developing the sludgy oily top layer.

Dip one and dry...

Dip 2 and dry.....

Rinse and dry!

I am very happy with the results.

A big thank you to Jean who has introduced me to the fascinating world of indigo

and Hanna for sharing her use of dates!