Indigo-a-go-go

 In preparation for an indigo dyeing workshop at the last CQFA meeting, I managed to stitch-resist exactly four lines of stitching. And obsessively rubber-banded the remainder of that piece of fabric. I tried to be fairly regular with where the rubber bands were placed but of course that got harder as the space between the rubber bands disappeared.  I was very intrigued to see how this one would turn out.

 In Maureen's sunny backyard, she'd set up a great space for us to get to work, dipping and sloshing the indigo all over with abandon. Our workshop teacher, Zoe Umholtz was wonderful, clear instructions, presented with a lot of energy. She does does a regular drop-in indigo workshop at the New Museum of Los Gatos. I might just have to head over there and join in, because this was very fun having everything set up, so we could just play.

 Here's how the pieces I dipped and dyed in the indigo buckets looked after a week of drying in a plastic tub. The instructions were to keep everything still bound up and clipped. We were warned not to forget about it and let it get molded/mildewed. No way, was I forgetting, I was dyeing (no dying!) to see how it would turn out.
  I wish I could have taken an in-process picture of how it all looked as the indigo dye soaked up the oxygen and went from green to blue, it was super pretty, but my hands were rather messy at the time. I dipped each item at least three times, some were probably four times.

 The clothespins got very nicely dyed, huh? The raw birch wood just soaked up the indigo. And the clean-up paper towels as well. Those will get used in collage at some point I'd imagine.

So I ended up dyeing three lengths of fabric, and one t-shirt that Rhonda so very nicely gave me at the workshop. I did a lot of folding and binding with clothespins, popsicle sticks and rubber bands.

It was a long wait to see how it would all turn out...a whole week, but you'll just have to wait a day to see how it all turned out once I opened it up and washed it out....