A Saturday to Dye For!

This Saturday was definitely a "Saturday to Dye For". I trekked down to Alexandria to Springwater Fiber Workshop for the Indigo Dyeing Class which was taught by Sylvia. I've been anxiously awaiting this class ever since I signed up for it shortly after the American Folklife Festival where I saw some fabulous Shibori dyeing using Indigo.

The morning started at a wonderful coffee shop just down the block from the studio...Perks Coffee Shop...where I had a wonderful cappuccino. I strolled back down to Springwater and began to settle myself in for class. When my friend Mia arrived, she delivered the yarn and roving she'd shopped for on my behalf when she went to Stitches Midwest. It's GORGEOUS!

The roving is Hand painted Montadale Top from the Illinois Greener Pastures Collection and Esther's Place. I LOVE the colors! Thers's some fabulous superwash sock yarn in the "Fidelio" color way from Hand Painted Knitting Yarns. It's 65% superwash wool, 25% nylon, and 10% Donegal - it's very soft and the Donegal gives it a very unique look. The final purchase is some incredibly soft Socks That Rock "Silkie" - it's 81% superwash Merino and 19% silk in the Rhodonite color way. I'm just thrilled with the fabulous yarns/roving that Mia selected for me....and the Stitches Midwest booklet....so I can see what I missed. Thanks Mia!

Now, for the part of Saturday that I "Dyed For".....

The class was everything I'd hoped for. We all had a fabulous time and came away with lots of experience and lots of fabulous samples and fibers. Our instructor, Sylvia, was fabulous! She's very knowledgeable and really made the class fun. The class was all day - from 10 am - 5 pm....and we all were very reluctant to leave - we'd had such a wonderful time!

All the yarns, fibers, and fabric that we dyed today were dyed with Indigo....the variety of shades of blue (and green) that you get is absolutely astounding! The more times you dip it, the deeper and richer the colors get.
Some fibers took to the dye much more quickly than others. We had 3 dye vats going, and those too produced different "intensities" of blues. One vat used "freeze dried" Indigo - it's ready to go immediately after being reconstituted. We did add a pinch of "Rit Dye Color Remover " to take the oxygen out of the vat. The second vat used Indigo we'd crushed using a baggie and hammer as well as a mortar and pestle with washing soda and Spectralite. The final vat used some of the Indigo we crushed as well as lye and Spectralite. (The photo is a random shot of my classmates dyeing their skeins.) Indigo dyeing is basically chemistry - it's "oxidation" that causes the blue color...and the dye has to be properly "reduced" before you start!

We completed three types of dyeing. (1)Immersion where we immersed the entire sample in the dye vat for a few seconds. Some of our samples were dipped multiple times to obtain the varying shades of blues or greens that you see (2) Shibori where we tied threads around little bunches of the silk fabric or used a running stitch and pulled it tight and tied it. (3) Ikat where we wrapped string tightly around a section or two of the yarn and dipped it a second time in the dye vat and on a second skein, wrapped and tied string a second time and dipped it a third time in the dye vat.

The first photo shows the single dipped yarns samples for everyone in the class - my samples are the 5 skeins on the top in the forefront. The second photo shows a closer view of my yarns "single dipped". The third photo shows our yarn samples again with our Ikat tied samples. The fourth photo again shows our yarns, but also shows the results of our Shibori dyeing. (In the 3rd photo, my yarns are on the outside of the "drying rack" and in the fourth, my Shibori dyed silk is drying on the top left of the rack.) The yarns we dyed were mainly cotton or wool.



























My Shibori sample was quite light, so I dipped it a second time. I liked the color much better the second time. I also learned that I should have tied it a bit tighter to get more of a contrast. This photo is of my classmate's Shibori - her results were much darker than mine and the contrast between the tied and untied areas are more distinct.

We also dyed a variety of fibers. Hemp, Soy Silk, Sheep's Wool, Bamboo, and Silk with silk noils. The first photo shows the hemp after a single dip in the Indigo/lye vat (bottom left of the photo). Most of us did NOT like the resulting color. I then dipped it a second time - this time, I used the "freeze dried" Indigo and the resulting color was much more pleasing (bottom left of the second photo).





Home at last - I have all my fibers and samples safely laid out in the bathtub to dry. They need to be completely dry prior to the clear water rinse and final water/vinegar bath so the maximum oxidation of the Indigo has occurred. I literally brought home a "tubful of goodies".


These final shots are closeups of the various fibers/yarns. My silk fabric was tied with thread and dipped twice - once in the Indigo/lye vat, rested, and then into the Indigo/washing soda bath. The green yarn you see here is the result of a single dip into the Indigo/lye vat with brownish wool - I really like the color of green that was produced. The lace was our "final exam" - our final project of the day was to dye a bookmark for ourselves.




Above are all the yarns I dyed today (from left to right). (1) Green yarn (again) - from brownish wool in the Indigo/lye vat. (2) Bookmark (again)- lace dipped in the "freeze dried Indigo" vat on one edge, then the Indigo/washing soda vat on the remaining 3/4, and finally the freeze-dried Indigo on the other edge. (3) Single dipped heavy cotton yarn dipped in the Indigo/washing soda vat at the same time as the mercerized cotton. (4) Mercerized cotton dipped in the Indigo/washing soda vat at the same time for the same amount of time as the heavy cotton. (5) Acrylic single dipped in the Indigo/lye vat. This was an experiment to see if it would take the dye. Next to the blues, it looks like it didn't, but it's actually a slightly grey-blue color compared the pale tan with fabric flecks that it started as! (6) Ikat tied - dipped once with no ties, once with one tie, and once with the second tie - there should be color gradients once the drying and rinsing are complete and the ties undone. (7)Single dipped wool in the "freeze dried Indigo" vat. (8) Ikat tied - dipped once in the Indigo/lye without a tie and once in the Indigo/washing soda with two ties. Again, there should be some color differential once it's dried and rinsed (and untied). (9)Cotton dipped once in the Indigo/washing soda vat. (10) Single dipped wool in the "freeze dried" Indigo.


The fibers - clockwise from the top left: (1)sheep's wool dipped twice in the Indigo/washing soda vat. The greenish areas were where the wool was yellowish. (2) bamboo in a lighter shade (not sure which vat.) (3) bamboo in a darker shade - either dyed twice or dyed in the "freeze dried" Indigo vat (4) soy silk (not sure which vat) (5) silk with silk noils (not sure which vat) and (6) hemp - dyed once in the Indigo/lye vat and once in the "freeze-dried" Indigo vat.



Strange "animal" picture......


Just when you think you've seen everything, I spotted this vintage round-fender truck at the corner of King St. and S. Henry St. on my way out of town. I don't know why it's setup like this, but I found it fascinating - a flag mounted on a garlard wrapped square arch hung over a plastic horse mounted in a pickup truck bed??? Hmmm....am I really seeing this, or is it the dye fumes?