Indigo Treasures

We spent the earlier part of our day clamping, tying, stitching and even a bit of ironing of various fabrics... All so we could dip them into the indigo pot and watch the magic. The first bit of magic is that everything goes into the pot turns green... lovely greens that you immediately say 'how can I get it stay this color'. Then almost as fast as it hits the air it begins its transformation into it's final shades of blue. This should be plenty of magic for anyone, but we get the additional treat of undoing the clamps, pulling the stitches or pulling off freezer paper bits for more fun magical revelations.

One in our group brought amazing books to sharing on indigo dying and shiborri. Both were wonderful not only to look at but gave very useful information that added to the fun.

Double, Double, Toil & Trouble

Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing.

Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble

The words are familiar to our ears, and they were chanted in fun as the members of my design group and I prepared the 'Indigo Pot'. Though no eye of newt was thrown in the blue gunk that forms as the lovely blue dye chemicals gets it bit of oxygen does give the appearance that it could make a blind-worm sting. We churned up a batch of Jacquards Pre-Reduced Indigo   This is much easier to use and we have been having a great time experimenting with clamps, stitching and another bunch of resist options as well as different fabric types.

Today I'm sharing some photos of the mixing and clamping and dipping....
Tomorrow I'll post some additional photos of the the fabric results. Hope you decide to pull out the cauldron and make some trouble of your own!