A finished “Antibes Fedora” I made from a Panama straw that I dipped in the Indigo.
Not long ago I had the pleasure of taking an Indigo Dyeing workshop at The French General in Los Angeles. Even though (in theory) I spend my days being creative in the studio, I love when I get the opportunity to delve into an artistic endeavor outside my studio. I learn so much from being around other creative women, seeing their process and how they approach working with materials. I always come back inspired and ready to create something new.
The class started with a quick history of indigo dyeing and a walk through the process of Shibori, a traditional Japanese dyeing method that uses indigo. In Shibori the fabric is folded and held in place with wooden resistors to create intricate designs. It is similar to a tie dye but rather than using ties to create the dye barriers, you use wooden plates or resistors and are able to get a much wider range of patterns and designs.
From there we created the dye baths with the indigo and set about manipulating our fabrics using both the Shibori techniques and some tie dye methods as well (pictures above).
I used a wide variety of fabrics to see how they would take to the dye, silk, linen, cotton and various hat bodies in sisal and Panama straw. I tried several different wooden resistors and folding methods along with some corks wound into the fabrics to create a circular deign.
As the day progressed and the dye bath diluted, the indigo color changed as well which I found interesting. The great thing about indigo dye is that the bath will hold for a day or two so if you're doing it at home you can dye things over several days and create more intricate patterns. You can see some of my finished pieces below drying on the line.
I’ve used the pieces I created to make a few “one off” hats as well as for linings in cut & sew hats. I also cut some of the larger pieces down to make a set of napkins and to wrap some gifts.
It was a really fun class, I can’t recommend it enough if you’re looking for a creative way to pass an afternoon. If you want to try your hand at Indigo Dyeing there a couple of upcoming workshops this Fall, October 11th & November 3rd at Bravo School of Art in San Diego and October 15th at French General in Los Angeles.