my journey into indigo
There is a Canadian company called Maiwa. Among the many things they do, they host classes on Teachable on dying with natural dyes, making ink, and Indigo. I took their Journey into Indigo class this autumn, and decided to try a project.
I wove blanks. But not just plain fabric blanks - 100% organic, sustainable grown cotton from American Maid woven with a supplemental warp of fat silk. I wanted to try a technique called woven shibori. There are several techniques, most with supplemental weft threads, but I decided to keep on my supplemental warp trajectory (see Sari Scarves and Pumpkin Latte Scarves).
So I wove a couple of different treadling patterns of the silk warp threads weaving up and down through the cloth.
I hemmed each square so they could be used as napkins.
This is a few picks up and down, then an inch or two with the threads dropped down, and just the plain weave for another inch or two.
I ended up with five mostly square napkin blanks, and enough left on the loom to weave a scarf once I have a pattern I like from these testers.
Next is one of the fun parts: gathering up the silk threads in different ways to create different effects in the indigo.
I decided to make an indigo vat reduced with ferrous sulphate instead of fruit. There is, if you’re very lucky, a short window when the vat is young and before the indigo reduces to catch some delicate blues and greens and rusts in your fabric. So, all gathered and cleaned - in went the samples!
Each tester went into the vat for four 10-minute dips. Then they rested overnight, and then they were rinsed and set in vinegar (to adjust the pH).
The really fun part will be opening up each tester to see how the dye took! And then I can plan the scarf.
