Basic Blues: Five Indigo Vats, Five Different Ways!

Starts March 20th

Basic Blues: Five Indigo Vats, Five Different Ways is a comprehensive Five Week online course which is a one-stop resource for anyone wishing to learn the art of dyeing fabric, fibers, and yarn, with indigo.

During the Five Week course you develop a solid foundation to start, maintain, trouble shoot, and revive FIVE different types of Indigo vats.

I will teach you the skills necessary to use Indigo safely, and how to create different values of blue from palest blue to the deepest of blues. You will learn the secrets to creating beautiful blue fabrics, that are not only light fast, but the indigo won’t crock off of your fabric, fibers, and yarns.

During this Five Week course I will also teach you about the history of indigo, its origins as a dye, the different types of indigo plants, the chemistry behind the elusive dye, and its applications other than as a dye.

You will work with Rust and Tannin Patterning Techniques as a Final BONUS LESSON.

As part of my private Facebook community, you’ll discover a global community of students, and friends, to support and to inspire you.

My passion is for you to experience the joy of working with indigo, and to learn which type of indigo vat works best for you!

Downloadable videos, which means you will have lifetime access.

Downloadable handouts, so that you can print out the information to use in your studio.

Access to my Facebook Community.

LEARN MORE NOW  

Creating an Indigo Vat

Creating and Indigo Vat!!!

NOTE: this is from my other blog written in 2009

Dye Materials Needed

1 ounce Indigo extract or Indigo chunks
1 cup Soda Ash or Lye (I HIGLY recommend using Soda Ash NOT Lye~!)
2 Tablespoons Thiourea dioxide or Thiox
Water

Equipment needed:

Respirator – you only get one set of lungs! Wear a respirator when handling dye powders, mordants, and dye assists~!
Gloves – wear heavy duty kitchen or dyeing gloves when handling the indigo ingredients (See safety Instructions Below)
Stock Pot 18 quarts or bigger, can be Stainless Steel or Enamel the indigo vat will react with aluminum so I don’t recommend using aluminum pots for creating the vat.
Scale for weighing dyes and chemicals – again studio dedicated!
Measuring spoons, measuring cups, wisk for stirring
Jar – wide mouth pint jar for making indigo paste
Spoon, studio dedicated, for stirring the vat
Tongs for retrieving your fabrics, fibers, etc.
Lingerie bag for small items you wish to find in the vat again the bag makes them easier to retrieve
Water for your vat, rinsing, and for oxidizing
Vinegar – helps to restore the pH balance of wool and silk fibers/fabrics
pH papers/strips for testing the pH of your vat.
Heat source
Clothesline for hanging fabrics onto to help fabric oxidize faster.

Natural Indigo Chemical Reduction Mini-Vat Instructions:

1. READ Safety Instructions before Beginning the Indigo Vat! 

2. Fill your vat container with water you don’t need to heat the vat at this point. ALLOW TO SIT OVERNIGHT, doing this allows the oxygen to dissipate from the vat.

3. Place 1 ounce Natural Indigo powder (if you are working with hard chunk indigo it will have to be ground down first) into a suitable container.

4. Add just enough hot water until you get a paste – preferably lump free (I use a dedicated wide mouth pint jar for this solution.

5. Add soda ash or lye to the vat water - NEVER add water to your soda ash or lye ALWAYS add the soda ash or lye to the water!!!

6. Slowly add the indigo paste to the vat solution

7. Stir to dissolve NOTE this may take quite a bit of stirring, heating the vat at this point also helps with dissolving the paste faster.

8. Next add thiox to the vat solution stir very little so as to avoid adding Oxygen to the vat.

9. DO NOT BOIL YOUR VAT as this will cause bubble formation and will introduce Oxygen into the vat.

10. REMOVE HEAT after 30 minutes

11. Cover vat and allow to sit until reduction is complete.

12. Reduction is complete when your vat turns a yellow to yellowish pea green color.

13. If your vat is still blue after 24 hours then you have too much Oxygen in your vat add thiox to the vat in small increments, a few grains of thiox at a time, to further reduce the vat.

14. If you reduce the vat too far then gently stir the vat with one or two swirls of the spoon and allow to sit for 30 minutes.

15. You will need to test the pH of the vat to see if the pH is correct

16. pH should be 10.0 – 11.5
· cottons 11.0-11.5
· wool and silk 10.5-11.0 preferably closer to 10.5

17. Adjust pH by adding small amounts, half teaspoon at a time, of soda ash to your vat, even is you created a lye vat do NOT add more lye to the vat at this point.

A link for Indigo Vat Safety Instructions 

Deconstructed Screen Printing with Madder Lac Extract

Madder lac screen printed onto compost dyed cotton fabric.

Madder lac screen printed onto indigo mono printed cotton fabrics that was dyed with tannin, learn more in my eBook Mark Making with Nature!

Woad and Indigo Blog Crawl 2013

List of participating blogs so far, if you have a blog and are working with indigo or woad and would like to be included please let me know!

Janet ~ www.starrynightalpacas.com
Ulrike - http://nemo-ignorat.typepad.com/nemo-ignorat/ 
Diana ~  http://dyeing2weave.wordpress.com 
Terri ~  http://terrilipman.blogspot.com

Woad and Indigo Blog Crawl

I will be posting the list of participating blogs later tonight!

Indigo Blog Crawl Continues!

This month's particpants will be listed over several posts since it's easier to list them this way than to keep updating an older post.

Diana de Souza http://dyeing2weave.wordpress.com  - Diana will be starting a Garcia vat this week so check back often to watch her progress!

This months Blog Crawl entails dyeing with Indigo.  I will be updating the list throughout the weekend.

Ulrike - http://nemo-ignorat.typepad.com/nemo-ignorat/

Indigo Dye Blog Crawl - Update

I will be listing participating blogs this evening!

August Natural Dye Blog Crawl and a Challenge

I will be posting Augusts blog crawl list on the 17th, and I'm adding a challenge for those that want to participate - Indigo. 

Dye something with indgo, but just don't stop there dye something with indigo and then overydye it with yet another dye.

Rust Dyeing eClass

 

Growth.

Rust Dyed Cotton Fabric

Machine Stitched.

I'm working on the content for the Rust Dyeing eClass!!!  Learn how to rust dye fabric, paper, and how to overdye with tannins, etc., for a gorgeous one of a kind surface!

Bjorkboda detail.
Rust, tannin, and indigo dyed cotton fabric.
Machine and Hand stitched.

Fruit Fermentation Vat 040313

 

Fruit fermentation vat.

 

 

The dark stuff towards the center is the indigo pigment settled at the bottom of the vat.

 

 

 

A lovely shade of yellowish green.

 

Fruit Fermentation Vat and Live Streaming

Attempted my first ever fruit fermentation vat this evening, notes about this are over in the Natural Surface forum, I liked it a LOT!  I streamed this session but was having a lot of issues with Ustream, so I will be streaming again tomorrow evening and from Google/YouTube Live instead of Ustream.  I will post a link tomorrow for the stream location.

I also worked with some earth pigments in this stream, it's recorded but will say I'm not sure how much of the recording has audio. 

I'm off to spend some quality time with hubs and my favorite pooch Angel.  See y'all tomorrow evening!

Indigo Fermentation Vats

My 150 gallon stainless steel vat, yes it is possible to keep a vat going for years even decades.  Learn more about dyeing with indigo in my Introduction to Indigo Dyeing Class at The Natural Surface!

My 30 gallon stainless steel indigo vat.  Both vats came from a defunct dairy farm.

Indigo

Indigo dyed wool strips.  Introduction to Indigo Dyeing begins February 15th, this class is self paced.  Cost $75 USD plus $29.95 subscription fee to The Natural Surface!

Prairie 2002

Prairie
2002
45x38ish inches
Natural Dyes
Silk Crepe de Chine

This is "Prairie" I found it last night in a wicker trunk with several other pieces to my 2002 Prairie Rermnant Solo Show.  I'm thinking of cutting it into four sections, after pressing, and machine stitching, maybe push the surface a little further, and work them into my Canyonland Series.  This while I wait on my indigo vat to do it's thing!

I'm teaching an online basic introduction to indigo starting February 14th at the Natural Surface (which is now $29.95 a year to be a member)  http://naturaldyeing.ning.com I will be teaching both the instant indigo vat, and the standard chemical reduction indigo vats.  Cost for the class is $75 USD.

Introduction to Indigo eClass

 

This class will begin February 14th, and will run approximately 90 days.  This class is perfect for the novice dyer whose never made an indigo vat, or hasn't had success attempting an indigo vat. The class is available through The Natural Surface.

Fabric Stash

Indigo and compost dyed fabric to the left, rust and compost dyed fabric to the right.  Cotton fabrics.

WIP - Untitled

I started this piece a good eight or nine years ago and completely forgot about it, well this week is it's week to come to life. 

Layered rust, indigo, and compost dyed, silk, cotton, and cotton linen blend fabrics.

WIP - Queen Anne's Birds now with more stitching.
It's now cool enough I can stand to be in my studio for more than five minutes to get some work done