I’ve done some indigo dyeing before, mostly for a session in my Dyeing 102: Controlling Texture online class, as well as when I teach Mother Earth Chemistry at the University, but I’ve not followed up on it much as there is just not that much time in the days! However, this week, I’m teaching a one hour class art class each morning for a Piano Camp that’s being run at the School of Music; the instant gratification of being able to see the blue appear before their very eyes, as well as how the folds they did turned into a pattern seemed like the perfect way to start the week! My friend Lizzie is going to help me early in the week and then teach the Thursday and Friday sessions as I’m off to a family wedding in Virginia, so she came over on Saturday to play in a new indigo vat I’d mixed up. After I showed her how it all worked with a few small samples, she tried out various rubberband resists with a large spiral in the center on a cotton/silk scarf blank, while I did a clamped design on another cotton/silk blank.
Here they are soon after they had come out of the vat and I’d just opened them up…the green portions were oxidizing to blue as I was snapping the picture:
And here they are a couple minutes later:
After I’d washed and dried them, I took a few minutes out from photographing tons of silk for Dyeing 104 I’ve been hard at work on to snap some pictures of our scarves, it is SO addictive to play with how the scarf is tied around “Myrtle” to see how the patterns look with different drapes! Here’s the scarf that Lizzie made:
And here’s my clamped design:
I think that I’m going to dye some more for shows this Fall and see how they sell, they are really fun to make!
One Response
They are beautiful and I expect they will sell really well. One of those scarves would look great with jeans. Have fun at the wedding but get yorself mentally and physically,prepared for Virginia heat and humidity!