Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Indigo Dye Day: What We Made!

As you know if you're a blog reader, we experimented with our staff last month and dyed some cloth and yarn with natural indigo. It was a blast and everyone ended up with beautiful goods to work with.
We gave ourselves a month to whip up something special with our hand dyed goods! Check out our results!

I made a Camber Set top! I recently finished my Camber Set dress and I liked it so much, I thought I should try out the top version. I wanted a simple design to show off my fabric which is a shibori dyed cotton/silk blend. The silk is a protein fiber and it helped the fabric take the dye better so I got a beautiful hue of indigo on the exposed parts of the fabric. I accordion-folded and then tied my fabric to create this pattern. The silk also gives the top a bit more drape and flow than a 100% cotton would have which I love.


Allison made this adorable tank that she self-drafted the pattern for! It shows off her shibori dyed Kona great and we love the use of dark indigo thread and contrast stitching. Her shibori technique was to "crumple the fabric and then wrap it with string." It turned out great!


Katy makes project bags that we all use here at the shop and are available online here. She chose to dye up some cotton fabric to use for her project bags so they are extra-special. She dip-dyed them for a sweet ombré affect.


Nathalie dyed up some fingering weight yarn. She wound her yarn into a center pull ball, which made the yarn take on the outside of the call take more dye than the inside. The result is a beautiful yarn with an ombre effect in various shades of indigo. She already whipped up this Hitchhiker shawl - a great one-skein pattern for any sock yarn by Martina Behm.


Nathalie also dyed a t-shirt which turned out a perfect blue!



Jess chose to overdye some Nani Iro wata-gauze that was originally a pale, off-white. This flowy, lightweight double gauze is an even looser weave than traditional double gauze. The fabric took the dye great and she made a Nuance tee out of it - Nani Iro's pattern designed just for this fabric - so perfect!


Jess also dyed some Brown Sheep Burlyspun, super-bulky wool yarn and made a quick knitted cowl. She achieved this speckledy look by putting her yarn in the vat in a twisted skein!


Kiyomi made a quilt! They incorporated their indigo-dyed cotton fabric with other fabrics to piece together this awesome quilt top.


Kiyomi also dyed some rayon jersey, which was a real experiment as we didn't know how the rayon would take the dye. It did great! The color is muted because the vats were almost exhausted at this point, but they did get a subtle ombre effect which looks great in this simple tee.


Miranda was really experimental and dropped all sorts of things in the dye vat including ric rac and sheep locks. She used her indigo locks to make a magical blue unicorn with flowing mane...so cute!


Miranda also over-dyed some silk! As of now the hot fabric is being worn as a scarf, but soon it will hit the sewing machine! 


Sunne used shibori dyeing techniques to dye this beautiful piece of fabric. She hand stitched this scarf together and embroidered to embellish the lovely finish of this dye!  


Sunne is also working on her very own shawl pattern with the fingering weight yarn she dyed! 


Nice work everyone!

4 comments:

Bellbird said...

Wow what a talented and creative bunch! You gave me some good ideas for some fabric that I indigo/shibori dyed last year.

Jeanine said...

Just drooling over all the gorgeous stuff! Wish I was nearby and could hang out all day and soak up the creative vibes!

Kate said...

what a wonderful assortment of projects - the colors and the finished projects are gorgeous - love love love all the shades of blue! very cool project :)

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