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!

Indigo Dye Day

Hi, Jaime here! Once a month we get together with our staff and do fun things (it's called Fancy Fun Times!) This month we did some indigo dyeing and it was so fun we had to report. Indigo is one of the oldest dyes to be used for textile printing and dyeing. Each staff member brought something to dye in indigo dye pots that we set up. It was super fun and the indigo is fascinating and amazing to work with.

Indigo dyeing is a bit more involved than other dyeing I have done. First the cloth and yarn needs to be scoured before dyeing to remove any chemicals, oils, etc that may be in the fibers. Before dyeing you can also prepare the fiber with Shibori techniques, which is an ancient technique for folding fabric. This creates patterns in the fabric by folding, stitching, and otherwise preventing the dye to saturate all the fabric. Techniques like this can be very involved and create beautiful patterns. We are not trained in these techniques so mostly we did some fun experimenting with them.

The day before dyeing, I prepared a concentrate of Indigo dye solution in mason jars.

After we mixed our mason jar concentrate in our 5 gallon buckets we were ready to go. Each of us had numerous items we couldn't wait to get in those vats. For a deep indigo color, it is recommended to keep your fiber under the liquid for at least 10 minutes- man were we getting antsy to see the results!

When you take your fiber out of the vat it is a yellowish green color. As soon as it is exposed to air, the indigo dye starts to oxidize and the blue hues start to come out. It is amazing to watch the color change so quickly!

!Voila! We have all kinds of magical indigo dyed pieces. There was such an incredible array of indigo dyed fiber, each showing off our little individual touches.

Our dye came from Maiwa who sells all sorts of natural dyes and also has great information about indigo and other type of dyeing. Check back next month to see what we made with our fabric and yarns!

Railroad Denims & Chambray Union

--amber

Railroad Denims and Chambray Union fabrics are here from Robert Kaufman! We can't wait to make a million classic indigo dresses, shirts and quilts galore!

We cut just a few fat quarter bundles--great for quilting projects--so if one needs to be yours, come on over soon!

The Robert Kaufman booth was very inspiring at Quilt Market, where they showcased these new classic fabrics. They had made up a Railroad Denim sample using the Negroni mens shirt pattern by Colette, as well as Sew Liberated's Esme Top in a Chambray.

Jaime and I have already cut chambrays to try out the newest Colette Pattern, the Hawthorn Dress. I can't wait to stitch it up!

Harveyville Project: Yarn School!

Jaime and I have been dreaming of attending Yarn School for a few years now, and last week our dream came true! Yarn School is a retreat for handspinners in rural Harveyville, Kansas.

The 'School' in Yarn School? Well, the retreat takes place in a retired school building in Harveyville, run by Nikol Lohr. We slept in the classrooms and spun in the gymnasium. The "Dye Lab" took place in the old science lab that was left mostly untouched and worked perfect! Nikol cooked us amazing meals all weekend so all our time could be focused on fiber and spinning.

On the grounds of the school lives a motley herd of sheep (Shetland, Merino, Romney), a happy flock of chickens, two kitties and a dog named Georgie.

We arrived to the biggest circle of spinning wheels of all time, and found our spot amongst the wheels. We would hang out here much of the weekend and spin yarn to our hearts content.

Adrian of Hello Yarn shared some of her hand-dyeing tips and demonstrated several ways of dyeing wool roving.

We each had 4, 8 oz balls of roving to dye up and we experimented with dyeing them in crockpots and in the microwave...

Roving smells good and is exciting

Dye scientists Jaime and Amber cook up some roving

Everyone's fiber was then hung to dry and it was quite the sight! It was so fun to see what everyone dyed and to find your own fiber in this giant roving wall.

Jaime searches out her rovings...

Adrian also taught us various spinning techniques. Here she is demonstrating the long draw method using carded rolags. This method of spinning is how a woolen spun yarn is made. Long draw is a fast spinning method, but time must be taken to properly hand-card your fiber first.

We both got to try out spinning on Ashford's "Country Spinner." This wheel is huge and features the largest bobbin I've ever seen - it is made to spin art yarns and it worked great for this purpose.

Jaime plys art yarn on the Country Spinner

We made tons of yarn and dyed so much roving throughout the weekend. Here is Jaime's favorite handspun creation - a 2-ply worsted from the "Narwhal" roving that Adrian dyed.

Here is Jaime's sunshiny bulky art yarn made on the Country Spinner.

Jaime and I brought the leftover Indigo dye vats from last weekend's Makerie retreat and we used them to dye more yarn and roving. It was awesome to share these with our new Yarn School friends and many people left with beautiful Indigo fiber.

Amber is ombre dyeing her roving.

Megan's beautiful Indigo dyed yarn

Indigo superheros with Indigo roving necklaces

We couldn't resist dyeing some yardage of fabric with the Indigo dyes as well. We had a blast at Yarn School, thanks so much Nikol and Adrian for superfuntimes!

New! Sashiko Japanese Embroidery Supplies!

We are loving sashiko. This Japanese style of embroidery is simple and sleek with it's geometric patterns and architectural faceted look. We are now carrying many designs of the printed cloth patterns ready for stitching, tons of colors of the sashiko embroider floss, and several kits that include all you need to get started with this sweet craft.



And if you are not ready to tackle learning sashiko on your own, check out our Sashiko Pillow class.