Indigo Fabric Dyeing

I have been dabbling with some fabric dyeing as in previous posts but I didn’t quite get the hang of it. Chemicals are daunting...it’s science and I was never very good at that (or math). Now that the weather is changing I am starting to get a bit charged by the process. This happened today and I was startled because I had been planning to try dyeing with some marigolds.

So what kickstarted me were all the indigo leaves that needed harvesting and ready to play with. I learned a little bit from Yumi when we were in Izu last year. 

I took some notes and she sent me a couple of videos to watch. 

“Chop up leaf with water (use blender)  & Strain through cloth

-Silk is best (or wild) can use wool also

-use 5x weight of leaf to fabric (ie 20g of fabric use 100g of leaf) y=5x (y is weight of leaves, x is the weight of fabric) 

-Changes to a beautiful blue

-If using cotton it doesn’t change to blue 

She advised me to use protein fabrics like silk or wool. Cotton was not going to work.(she later suggested soaking cotton in soy milk to help absorb the color)  But all I had was cotton in my stash. On the advice of my fellow quilters I bought some Synthropol to prepare the fabric.

So what I got was the prettiest mint green and I think I used too much water

...and then I took one piece and poured in some grape juice 



Once these pieces dried the color lightened up . Still pretty but I wanted the darker.

So I tried again and this time I added some salt to the leaves when I blended them and rubbed the mixture directly onto the fabric. I also found some rovings in my stash. Forgot to strain the leaves first 😂😂

Better but still not there

So I started researching more and found that using a mordant is important. What the heck is a mordant I asked and I learned a lot from this utube video https://youtu.be/jX0DXaeO9BY

 I didn’t want to use the metals that some said to use, like alum. I mean I was ready now and besides I didn’t have any of this stuff on hand. But what I did have was rhubarb leaves and soy milk! https://youtu.be/eZUzT9DCvXc

Meanwhile I have another PFD  fat quarter soaking in soy milk (watered down) and hopefully I can harvest some more indigo tomorrow. Unless the weather took them. If no indigo I will harvest something else....there maybe some beet greens...or kale...

This was kinda fun...