More Indigo

The dye bath that we used at our retreat is still kicking.  It's been boosted a few times with thiox and I think may finally be losing it's oomph but I haven't thrown it out yet.  It's not quite as iridescent as before.  However it did a great job of over dyeing Colleen's emerald green scarf.

and these are going to be fun socks to wear. 

 This is a pillow case that was looking rather aged.  The dye is definitely fading. 

 And a little of nature's indigo!  Blue jay feathers.

Text'Art Retreat

Once again the group of us spent four lovely days at the cottage with a variety of things that we organized to do.  This included felting scarves, indigo dyeing, sewing and just relaxing.


Lauma organized silk organza for us to make scarves using wool roving to felt into it.  It was a labour intensive work involving lots of water, lots of rolling in bubble wrap, and having our arms shaken out of their sockets using a sander to pound.  Many hours of work per scarf and many hours of work for Lauma who kindly saw that we did it right and came out with great success as shown below.

my scarf

On the side, I prepared an indigo dye bath using ProChem's PRO Indigo mixed with lye and thiox and it grew to a lovely colour - an iridescent purple crust on top and a lovely lime-green below. 

the studio

dressed for action

when the fabric comes out of the dye bath it is greenish and oxidizes to a lovely deep blue.  The more often it is dipped, the darker the blue.  Below are pieces tied, twisted and scrunched to produce various effects.

Colleen keeping her work down - it floats otherwise.

Of course, the cocktail hour is an important part of the day, which includes the above work, walks and swims.

some of the results.

getting started on my scarf