Indigo Dyeing Session at East

This past Wednesday Teresa at East Branch Library held an Indigo dyeing class. Teresa had gone with me to an indigo dyeing class at the Carnegie Center last September and like me, fell in love with Indigo. She scheduled this class and we’ve all been eagerly waiting for the day to come.

We’ve had so much rain lately, but that day was absolutely perfect.

Teresa started us in the folding area where she had lots of supplies for us to use. I brought some pebbles, rocks, and pvc pipe to share too.

 Here is a piece of my fabric all tied up with pebbles.

After we finished preparing our fabric, we walked outside to the dye buckets.  We soaked our fabric in water and then put it in the dye bucket.

We waited for 10 or so minutes and then pulled our pieces out of the dye and placed them on the grass.  When you pull the fabric from the dye, it’s a bright yellow green. If you just wait, in a  short time the fabric will turn to indigo. It’s really amazing!

Then we rinsed our pieces, untied them or removed the pebbles or whatever we had used to make designs, and then hung them on the line. We then took them home and washed them.

Here is my pebbled piece.

I’ve really gotten into the mandelas. Here is my indigo one.

I wanted to see how Indigo would play with Jacquard Color Magnet.  I used my thermofax screen with Color Magnet the night before so it was dry for our dyeing. I did not soak it in water before putting it in the Indigo bucket because I didn’t want the water to dissolve the Color Magnet. There are streaks which might have been caused by not wetting the fabric.

And a couple other pieces.

And a silk scarf.

What a fun day! Thanks to Teresa for putting this session together for us.