Grace Design | Fashion Accessories

Hello!


As usual, my apologies for being MIA. I wanted to share with you a few photos from my natural dyeing experiments. I finally used up some of my dyes I bought when I was in Vancouver. I started off doing indigo. Most people would not start there, seeing as it requires fermentation and such. Most people would probably start with something simple, maybe some onion skins or some cabbage. But nooooooo. So, last Sunday afternoon, I proceeded to start my first indigo vat. You can see above, my lovely selection of natural fibres, all ready for colour. 

To be honest, Maiwa sells their indigo in a kit and it was a lot simpler than I thought. I added the indigo and some lye and water to a jar and let it sit out in the sun for a few hours. You can see the interesting transformation in the photos below, changing from a blue liquid to a coppery one with a blue film as it reduces. The 'flower' on the top is a good indicator that things are working and the oxygen is reducing. What is so fascinating about dyeing with indigo is that the actual dyeing doesn't take place in the vat but once you remove the fabrics and the oxygen hits them. At this point they turn blue, like magic!

I ended up dyeing some thick cotton linen with a ribbed texture that is used as obi lining. I thought it would be a good test piece but it actually took the dye so well and is so thick that I plan to make some little pouch's from it. I also threw in varying types of cotton, muslin and gauze. The best turnout was the white silk I threw in there. I can't wait to show you guys what I have in store for that! I didn't use any special shibori techniques this time, mainly just wrapped and twisted. One piece of gauze I wrapped and bundled with little stones which gave me the typical tie dye pattern. Overall, it was a totally fun and gratifying way to spend the afternoon. More to come!