There really is something magical about the way cloth dipped in indigo changes color when it hits the air.
how it turns blue
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Tag Archives: dyeing
Sea Island Indigo – at Rebellion Farm
Heather Powers’s hands
For days Two and Three of the Sea Island Indigo workshop*, we convened at Rebellion Farm, about 20 minutes west of my airbnb host in West Ashley. Donna Hardy was not kidding that she had grown us a field of indigo, and we began by harvesting.
The straight-leafed crop in the three pictures above is Golden Rice, for which Carolina is famous. Indigo, below. 
Right about the time I was taking this shot, fire ants were swarming all over my feet. They sting!! After a comic amount of swatting, I managed to get rid of them. Thankfully, only one managed to crawl above my knee.
We selectively harvested because some leaves were more ready than others.
Donna is also growing Sea Island cotton (above and below). This variety has a longer staple and when woven, has the sheen and drape of silk.
I was lucky to be partnered for the day with fiber artist, Leigh aka Madame Magar (Charlestonmag.com article). After spending twenty years making hats, Leigh (below) is now designing funky, barely-constructed clothes and creating cloth-related installations. I encourage you to follow the link and see what she’s up to.
Leigh tending the pot
Our gas flame was exposed to a little draft and kept going out. For that reason, and perhaps others, our batch was fussy, non-compliant. This turned out to be OK because it meant we got to see how the experts make adjustments.
Aeration method: pour liquid from bucket to bucket 100 times. Some in the group went to 500! After Leigh and I reached 200, we stood in line for the blender.
finally made myself an etui
Notes: Shelley flings ‘garden snake’ off into the shrubs… black snake / smallish.
We got a pounding rain the first afternoon, which sounded incredible on the pole barn’s roof!
Tomorrow’s post will continue at the pole barn. You can read a nice narrative about the weekend here (Heather Powers’s blog).
* * *
Sea Island Indigo Workshop took place September 18-21, 2014 in Charleston, SC. A field of indigo was grown for us by Donna Hardy, on Rebellion Farm, in Ravenel, SC. Fiber artist Kathy Hattori, of Botanical Workshops, flew in from Seattle to co-lead the two days of hands-on indigo dyeing. My participation in the workshop was funded by a kickstarter campaign.
Sea Island Indigo and The Fool
When I found out about a three-day indigo forum in Charleston, South Carolina this coming September, I practically jumped out of my seat. I didn’t even go to the impracticality of the opportunity given its price… just reveled in the notion of a free and clear calendar.
How different to consider a pricey tuition than to anticipate the juggling of school and doctors’ appointments and meals and well, you know, parenting!
Check it out: Sea Island Indigo Workshop.
Here is the revised and nearly complete “Fool”. I let the underlying blue paper serve as mountains, instead of the cut-out denim I had originally. And I replaced the sad-eyed basset with the black and white mutt you see below. I was happy to find this dog — it so nearly mimics the one depicted in the Rider deck. The Rider deck will be my prime source, by the way.
In terms of synchronicity — I was cutting out the suitcase, wondering whether I would find a good rose (something I considered essential for the card), when I flipped over the page and found the one you see there!
All that remains is to add title and number and make color xerox at proper size. And maybe revise the sun rays. What do you think? Too hokey? Inconsistent with the rest?
dunking, dingy, houses and blues
This is the vertical Middle Passage quilt, after adding some cloth and rubber band resists to lower edge and dunking into indigo vat.
Our bathroom receives late afternoon sun – from the weekend.
It was such a beautiful day here. Since we abut an elementary school, all my activity out back this morning was accompanied by the sounds of children playing.
I was happy to spend some of such a glorious day outside with cloth, and raking, and taking a walk around Crystal Lake.
Under the catalpa tree out back
There is the dye station. The pounded dirt and blue tarp over D’s mini-ramp make the whole scene look a little trashy. Please do not notice the coffee mug and English muffin on the dye table – I know this is a bad practice!!! But lately, almost every day in fact, I find myself feeling odd, and then remembering that I haven’t eaten anything and rustling up a quick bite, but without really taking a break, and sometimes STILL forgetting to eat (I wish this were true AFTER dinner, when I seem to want to eat all the way until bedtime). So, yes, I need a little side table for food and drinks. That’s my neighbor, Laura, who has graciously offered her time here and there and her talent as my intern.
So far the best thing we did together was to throw out four huge bags of fabric. I craigslisted a Curb Alert, and after a few pickers, someone came and took it all away. Didn’t get rained on, and if a passing dog decided to mark, it would have hit the plastic bags.
Speaking of dogs, this morning Jack marked a porcelain toilet that was on the curb and left a nice, tangy yellow pool in the discarded bowl!! Made me laugh. Made me tip the thing up to drain it out!
This flour sack (I’ve posted about it before) was my husband’s grandmother’s out in Wyoming, where they lived in the mining town of Rock Springs. I have a lot more of this left that will NOT be dyed.
This was a piece of prepared-for-dye silk that I wish I had dunked one or two more times. It has faded more since this picture.
one dunk
after two dunks
lacrosse balls inside of cotton
I was surprised to see that one of the chemicals in the dye vat stripped the T-shirt of its original yellow/green color (the thiourea dioxide perhaps – which I notice is packaged by Dharma Trading as a ‘color remover’).
Laura got to make something for herself, too.
The rope line is turning blue in places, not surprisingly.
This vat, by the way, is my first exercise in the Shibori Girl Studio, Indigo Dye Workshop. I used pre-reduced indigo crystals in the “Quick Vat” recipe. I have yet to read on rinsing or fixing processes, but am having lots of fun dunking cloth into the bucket.
One of the side benefits of this exercise, is that it gets me outside…
The very first day, back in the beginning of the month, while setting up the station, thunder rolled on in. A much needed pounding rain materialized and I couldn’t help but feel like the indigo gods were moved by our conjuring!
