Thursday, October 6, 2011 - Indigo Dyeing

This morning we traveled to Threads of Life office location and did indigo dyeing.  The location has a workshop area to give classes as well as a garden to harvest the natural materials for dyeing fibres.  This location is where William and Jean Ingram have their home, which is beautiful.

Here is a photo of their shower and toilet room.  Notice that one side has no wall.  The wooden post has the shower head and taps in it.

Here are some sample of indigo leaves and some chunks of indigo dye. The indigo leaves are put in a pail, boiling water is poured over them and then they are left to sit for 24 hours.  The water from the steeped leaves, green in colour is then mixed with lime powder and mixed, until the bubbles are dark blue or grey.  Then the indigo is alive and ready to dye cloth.  The cloth is dipped into the indigo liquid for 20 minutes, then it is lifted out of the dye vat.  When it is first lifted out of the indigo the cloth is very green in colour, but as it oxidizes in the air it slowly begins to turn blue.  Very exciting - like magic!!  The darker you want your fabric, the more often you dip it in the dye and dry it.

Here you can see the natural colour of the cotton on the right,  Then the dark blue is cotton repeatedly dyed in indigo, the third bundle of cotton was dyed in indigo for a short while and is light blue.  The black bundle of cotton fibre is dyed with both indigo and  natural red dye.

Here are example of the natural red dye.  Right to left - natural white, yellow, and red.

Once we had some instruction in the art of dyeing cotton, we began our batik indigo dyeing hands-on workshop.  We began by taking a natural piece of cotton 50cm square and tjanting some designs on it.  Here is the heater that melts the wax being lit.

We put lines of hot wax on our blank cotton canvas using a tjanting tool.  I divided my piece of cotton into four sections, 'drawing' a different design in each section.  Then we dunked the cotton in the vat of indigo dye.

My cotton sampler sporting four different designs - poinsetta, zig-zag, tree and flower chops.

Lowering my cotton into a vat of indigo dye.

Here is one of the sample cottons coming out of the first dip in the indigo dye.

Notice that the sample to the left looks blue, while mine, just out of the vat still looks green.  It is amazing to watch it turn from green to blue in the air.  It takes about 10-15 seconds to change.

Here is my sample after a second dip in the indigo dye vat.

A string of cotton indigo dying samples.