FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Indigo Flower Pigment & Stripping Color
This week on FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Painting using the indigo flower pigment and how to strip color from a naturally dyed fiber
Search Results for: indigo round up
FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Iron in The Water & Indigo Flowers Not Blooming
This week on FEEDBACK FRIDAY: How iron in your tap water changes color, temperamental indigo flowers and what’s the function of wheat bran?
Dyeing for Dummies: Natural Dye Poster Child-Indigo
Indigo has a long standing history of heavy-duty power in terms of economics and trade and is probably one of the most talked and written about dyes in the natural dye world. We love the color blue and all its moodiness. It’s also very in for fall 14. Get ready for the navy explosion! For this Dyeing for Dummies, I have put not only myself but husband and daughter in the cross hairs of looking foolish, over exuberant, and dummy-like. (Side note, they had a blast and refuse to be called dummies.) We used all of Botanical Colors’ dyes and … Read more
Social Change Through Indigo, Shibori and EILEEN FISHER
This past weekend we had the pleasure of collaborating with EILEEN FISHER’S GREEN EILEEN team at a workshop in Seattle at the Hillman City Collaboratory. The Collaboratory is a center for the arts and an incubator for social change with a mission to create a space of transformation including the built environment and the programming specifically designed to create community and equip change-makers. The Collaboratory is housed in a multi-use complex that incorporates four unique spaces: the mixing chamber, the coworking office, the learning kitchen, and the community park & garden. Attendees learned the Japanese art of shibori and natural … Read more
A Deep Dive into the 1-2-3 Indigo Vat
Indigo gradation from Aboubakar Fofana’s workshop on indigo. The vat is a 7gpl fructose vat. Diving into indigo blue We have been working with the 1-2-3 indigo vat for nearly 10 years and over time made some adjustments to the original recipe from Michel Garcia. Here we share a recent experiment where we set up 4 different types of 1-2-3 vats and present the results. New instructions are linked below for each vat type with hints for a successful indigo vat! You can also search our blog posts for information on indigo vats and answers to your many questions. Our … Read more
For National Tie-Dye Day, Resist With An Indigo Vat
There’s a holiday for everything so all hail National Tie-Dye Day! According to Vox, did you know that historians’ knowledge of early techniques similar to tie-dye is limited by the fact that textiles decay faster than most other artistic mediums? This means surviving samples aren’t easy to come by. “‘Some of the earliest examples come from Peru, but tie-dye seems to have originated independently all over the world,’ says Lee Talbot, curator of George Washington University’s Textile Museum.” We’ve created this National Tie-Dye Day how-to just for you to celebrate this sacred day to continue the tradition. Not sure which … Read more
Easy and Fun DIY Indigo Dyed Easter Eggs
Here’s a fun way to do some easy DIY indigo-dyed Easter eggs! About Food says that “Easter falls in the spring, the yearly time of renewal, when the earth renews itself after a long, cold winter. The word Easter comes to us from the Norsemen’s Eostur, Eastar, Ostara and Ostar and the pagan goddess Eostre all of which include the season of the growing sun and rebirth. The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians, and Hindus all believed the world began with an enormous egg, thus the egg as a symbol of new life has been around for eons.” I have always … Read more
This Indigo Research Could Make Blue Jeans Green
According to Phys.org, Berkeley bioengineering professor John Dueber has studied the chemical steps plants use to naturally make indigo, and he thinks he has found an environmentally green way for the industry to churn out the dye without the use of toxic compounds. “When plant leaves are healthy, a chemical precursor to indigo, called indican, is caged within a sugar molecule and isolated from the rest of the cell in an organelle. Only when leaves are damaged is indican released from this compartment. The sugar protective cage is removed, allowing a chemical change that makes indigo. Green leaves turn blue. … Read more
You Asked, Kathy Answered: Hapa-Zome + Overdyeing Indigo
We get lots of emails from customers about challenges with dyeing and needing Botanical Colors’ President Kathy Hattori’s help. Why not share the learning so we can all benefit? From our inboxes to you, it’s simple: You Asked, Kathy Answered. Email questions@botanicalcolors with your plea for help! YOU ASKED: When doing hapa-zome with fresh indigo leaves, do I need to treat the fabric with soda ash prior to hammering the leaves? KATHY ANSWERED: I have not heard about using soda ash with fresh indigo printing. The instructions and method that I’ve used is to get a piece of silk fabric, … Read more
Mid-Week FEEDBACK: Indigo Iron Vat & Expired Dyes
This week: How to make an indigo iron vat, can dyes expire and washfastness