Tuesday 27 August 2019

Indigo & Ice

I spent another lovely day at Littleheath Barn Studio on an Ice-dyeing and Indigo dyeing workshop.

We started with the ice-dyeing.  This is lovely and simple.  The only equipment you need is some plant pots, a cat litter tray and a cooling rack.  Then fabric, some ice, a teaspoon-ish of soda ash, and your choice of procion dyes still in powder form.  The fabrics are under the ice. I used charcoal, rust brown and bottle green.

Whilst the ice was melting and taking the dye through to the fabrics we started preparing fabrics for the indigo bath.  This was the only undyed fabric I used, which I pegged in the way that Laura Kemshall had demonstrated on DesignmattersTV.



 The fabric with all the pegs turned out like this.

This piece of cloth had already been been printed using the breakdown printing method in pinks and purples.  This was the fabric scrunched up around the rope.

And the reverse.

I used a selection of fabrics that had been dyed previously as a colour family.  They weren't colours I felt I would use so over-dyed all of them in the indigo which has made them a more cohesive set.

 
 


Here are some more of the fabrics

 This is the one which had the Duplo bricks.


The results of the ice dyeing wasn't as successful as when I've done it before.  These cotton fabrics were scrunched  up in the pots and are ok.


For a change I thought I would use silk noile and folded it in the ways I used later for the indigo vat.  However the colour only took on the edges.  I have four squares like this.

And one large piece that shows the colour better and was scrunched up in the pot.

I was disappointed at the time, but now the silk is washed out and ironed, I rather like it and think I might use it as it is.  Ideas are fermenting as to how I might use it.   Watch this space!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice


1 comment:

  1. thanks for sharing the good and bad. My very first regular dying didn't come out the way I wanted it to either. I'll be going to another workshop in the near future.

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