Dyeing Blue This Week

     I started two indigo vats this past week-one with the pre-reduced indigo from ProChem and one with the natural indigo in  a lime-fructose-indigo vat. It was easier than I thought it would be and the warm weather helped me jump outdoors and jump into fabric dyeing.

Silk Habotai with natural indigo

Cotton with natural indigo

Pre-reduced indigo with silk 

     It was interesting to see the variety of values between the vats and the different types of fabric I used. The pre-reduced indigo resulted the very dark blue fabrics.  It is a stark difference between the two and I think I enjoy the lighter blues. I used silk, bamboo/cotton blend and cotton to try with this batch. The only assignment was to start the vats and do test swatches which I have done and now labeled for future use this summer.

    I also am continuing on my series but ran out of navy blue for one of my pieces. So out came the  Procion navy blue and few pieces of cotton for the fabric dyeing I needed. I am ready to move on to brighter spring colors to use up what I have already dyed.  Fabric dyeing is time consuming but I didn’t want to waste the 75 degree weather here this week which has been unexpected and pleasant.

Bamboo/cotton with Procion Teal Blue

 Back to work on my blue lines next week.

I can’t get a few of my pictures to load so on that note -off to guitar lessons with my son.