Dyeing the Blues

Tiggy Rawling ran an absolutely brilliant weekend workshop at Wimbourne's Walford Mill and I was one of six lucky participants.

We were exploring both shibori techniques and indigo dyeing, and thankifully the weather was just warm enough to make this feasible. We were accomodated in a huge gazebo behind the craft gallery, thus enjoying fresh air and providing entertainment to visitors to the mill and to the excellent bistro there (which served me delicious crab salads for my lunch on both days).

On the right, above, are two pole-wrapped pieces while the lefthand sample is the traditional woodgrain pattern.

On the right above is the Japanese Larch pattern, worked freehand rather than to pre-marked patterns.

This piece of cotton velvet was concertina-pleated and then held firmly with a twist in the dye vat. This photo shows it during the process of oxidisation - the gorgeous greens disappear and gradually turn blue, can be seen below.

I loved using indigo, and plan to make up a vat at home later this week so I can do some more dyeing.