indigo – Page 2 – Fiber Artisans of San Jose

July 19, 2015 -Phyllis’s Medal and Overdyeing a Shawl

We had a fun meeting on July 19th, 2015 at the home of Phyllis Karsten. Phyllis just got back from the senior games and won a first place medal in her 90+ class. She just missed the world record by something like 40 seconds. Way to go Phyllis!

Sandy Kupper (left) and Phyllis Karsten (right). Photo of Phyllis at Senior Games 2015. Phyllis shown with her first place medal.

Sandy brought the extremely soft woolen shawl that Jean Shoe so expertly and lovingly made, like all her hand work. But we felt the colors were a little too bright for our tastes so Sandy did a quick indigo dip. It muted down the colors wonderfully. We were very happy with the results.

This was the bright knitted shawl before indigo dip.

WP_20150719_007 — Carol Lewis wearing the indigo dyed shawl.

Frank’s May Dye Project

I decided to do 2 small pieces 18 X 11 inches. These will be used for covering the covers of handmade books.

Piece #1 I accordion pleated the long way with 1 1/2 inch pleats, giving me an 18 inch strip 1 1/2 inch wide. Then I pleated the the other direction in 1 1/2 inch pleats. This gave me a cube that I tied several times around both directions.

Piece #2 I accordion pleated the long way with 1 inch pleats, giving me an 18 inch strip 1 inch wide. Then I tied the strip about every 2 inches.

Shibori tied cloth, ready for indigo bath.

I then dipped them in the indigo 3 times; The 2nd and 3rd time I dipped Piece #1, I opened the folds on the corners slightly.

Our dye pot was Strong so I only left the pieces in for 1 to 2 minutes.

Here are the pieces wet.

Very little dye rinsed out and there is no crocking. As you can see the darkest blues are almost as strong dry as they were wet!

Frank’s Felted Bag – Resist Dyeing – May 2015

Frank’s bag from last month’s indigo dye pot is felted and finished!

September 28, 2014 – Dye Day

On September 24th, the group met with the intent to do wax resist on fabric and then dyeing the fabric with indigo. Below is a beautiful example, created by our member Phyllis Karsten with a simple white kitchen towel and a potato masher.

August 24, 2014 – Indigo Dye Summer Meeting

We had a wonderful indigo dye day today. Frank Mikulastic and Sandra Kupper had items to dye. We have been experimenting with shibori folding techniques and tried some new ideas today.

Frank started with white cotton fabric. He folded the fabric in the long direction and then folded it into a triangle bundle. He then wrapped rubber bands around the outside to hold it together in the dye bath.

He dipped it into the dye bath 5-6 times and the fabric got darker with each dip into the indigo. (With indigo, the best way to get a darkly dyed fabric is to do multiple dips, not with stronger dye.)

Sandy wrapped her fabric around a pvc pipe and tied it with string then dip dyed it about 3 times for a fantastic looking diagonal stripe.