Indigo Dyeing

This was a one week project based on indigo dyeing which produces a lovely blue colour. Depending on how much you mix up with water and how many times you submerge the material in the dye depends on what colour the fabric will turn out. Indigo dyeing works better on natural material rather than man made as as it clings to the fibres better, however although most of the dyeing I did was with natural fabrics I did also try a couple of man made fabrics to see how well it would work. Although they did dye, the colour was not as strong as it should have been (was in the darkest dye available and was submerged many times), compared to many of the natural samples I also did along side it. Using various techniques to tie the material up, I managed to create many effects. 

Along side indigo dyeing, we were also taught batik. This is where hot wax is used to resist the dye. Although I had done this before it has been quite a while so it was good to revisit it again.
Here is my dye work pinned up in my studio space:

Tying up some material ready for dyeing 

A few of my samples in the bin dyeing

Some of my work dyed in various ways, depending on how it was tied up. The 3rd and 4th one  at the top from the left are both batik.

More examples. The 2nd one down on the left is batik.

The three pieces on the left going downwards are all batik pieces.

This was created on a machine, in which you tie it on then submerge the whole pole it was tied on. This machine is quite good for doing large pieces of material.