itajime – I Dyed it My Way

Partly Sunny with a Chance of Indigo

April 17, 2020November 3, 2020 2 Comments

In a normal year, I begin my outdoor indigo dyeing season in mid-summer, when the days are warm and nights don’t get too cold. This year is anything but normal, with a global pandemic keeping us all at home, every day indistinguishable from another. It’s so incongruous to have news of the infection and death counts rising sharply every day, while here in the Northwest we are having an unusually pleasant early spring. Blooms, green leaves, partly sunny days; it all seems like the perfect staging for a glorious garden party! Instead it is contrasted with dire economic forecasts and scary public health statistics, as well as the by now familiar guidance for social distance, mask-wearing, hand washing, etc.

But since we are in a spate of warm days now and I have a lot of time on my hands, I decided to revive my indigo vat early this year. Having no proper indoor space for the vat and the messy dyeing process, I must leave it outdoors in a spot that will receive a good amount of sunlight and heat. I can control the addition of ingredients like indigo, alkali and oxygen reducer fairly easily, but the vat temperature is the hardest thing to control. Night temperatures are still falling to a range from high 30’s to mid 40’s F, so reheating some of the vat liquid is necessary almost every day. In spite of the extra time required for heating and resting afterward, I wanted to give it a go.

I enjoy waking up a tired and sleepy indigo vat with heat, fresh indigo and chemicals. I’m using lime and fructose so it’s not as Frankenstein as it sounds. The vat bubbles to life with a dark, shiny flower and the aroma of warm, fresh indigo. I love that smell as much as baking bread!

The indigo vat with a healthy flower in a sunny spot outside.

My first dyeing effort was a fold and clamp project on a runner I wove from an interesting stiff ramie yarn. It absorbed the dye beautifully and turned a beautiful blue with just four dips. Then I got out an old T-shirt I had previously dyed with a stitch resist. It has always looked unfinished to me, so I just dunked it in the vat a few times to darken the pattern and lower the contrast. I think I’m ready to wear it now.

The folded and clamped ramie runner oxidizing between dips.

Fold and clamp with resist removed. — The folded and clamped ramie runner oxidizing between dips.

As long as our nice warm weather holds, I will continue indigo dyeing. I plan to do a little every day, and hope to update this with more photos.

Shifu and Shibori

April 14, 2019May 5, 2019 Leave a comment

Several years ago I joined with a few other local weaving guild members in ordering some washi, or paper, yarns from Japan. My order included 3 yarns: a very thin all-paper yarn made from twisting and spinning a 2 mm wide strip of paper, a thicker yarn made from plies of paper and rayon, and a flat, ribbon-like strip of 2 mm wide paper wrapped with criss-crossing cotton and rayon threads. The goal was to weave shifu, or fabric woven from paper yarn.

Top: the fine paper yarn; left: the flat paper yarn wrapped with rayon and cotton threads; right: the medium weight paper and rayon blend.
Closeup of flat paper yarn wrapped with rayon and cotton threads, which performed well as warp.

While twisting and spinning the paper yarn does make it stronger, it is not usually recommended for use as warp yarn, because it will not often stand up to tension on the loom. Shifu is frequently woven from cotton or other fibers in the warp and paper yarn in the weft only. I used my paper yarns primarily as weft in a variety of projects: a couple of scarves with Tencel and cotton warp, one length of fabric with cotton and linen warp, and one with an overtwisted rayon in the warp to get a crepe effect.

Scarf woven with cotton and Tencel warp, paper weft.
Fabric woven from linen and cotton warp, paper weft.
Two pieces of crepe fabric woven with overtwisted rayon warp and fine paper weft.

Later, on the advice of another weaver, I did try warping with the flat, ribbon yarn, which was a little stronger than the other two. To my surprise, it stood up to the tension of my Baby Wolf loom, so I was able to weave a fabric of approximately 95% paper.

I had enough of the flat yarn to put on a warp 3+ yards long by 24 inches wide. I wove alternating rows of the thick and thin paper yarns for weft, and got about 2.5 yards of this fabric before running out of the paper weft. I wove the remaining 24 inches or so with alternating thick and thin rayon yarns. I took the fabric off the loom and separated the two fabrics by cutting between rows of machine zig-zag stitching. Having already woven and washed some other paper yarn projects, I fearlessly wet-finished, line-dried and ironed my paper fabrics. They held up beautifully! Then I wanted to dye them in indigo using shibori methods.

Closeup of fabric woven from flat paper warp and alternating thicknesses of paper weft.

On a warm summer day, I got my indigo vat set up outdoors and did some folding and clamping for itajime shibori. I wet out the fabric bundles and dipped them in indigo numerous times for a dark shade and high contrast with the undyed portions. Then came the rinsing and soaping and more rinsing. Who would have thought that paper could withstand so much washing? Not me, but I was very happy to learn what a strong fabric paper can make. I dyed a few other shifu pieces as well that day, so now all my paper projects have indigo shibori patterns on them.

Now I am taking the next step: cutting and sewing the handwoven paper fabric into garments. I made the largest piece into a top using my favorite old Burda pattern (See my previous post New Work from Old Fabric). The fabric of linen and cotton warp with paper weft has a texture and hand very similar to canvas. This will probably be made into something utilitarian, such as a bag or table runner. I will have to ponder the other small pieces for inspiration.

Finished and dyed fabric from which the garment was fashioned.
Closeup of the canvas-like fabric with linen and cotton warp.
Small piece of fabric woven with flat paper warp and rayon weft. Very soft!

Learn more about the time- and labor-intensive craft of creating handmade paper yarn and shifu: Susan J. Byrd has written a book and posted online videos about making paper yarn. Hiroko Karuno also has authored a book and articles, as well as videos, on making paper thread and shifu.

Indigo Shibori Jacket: Handwoven and Dyed

February 12, 2018August 24, 2018 Leave a comment

A recently completed jacket made from cloth I wove and dyed over the last couple of years.

A few years ago I acquired some wonderful yarn on sale as a close-out. It is a blend of alpaca and Tencel, both of which are soft (and slippery) fibers. I wove a few yards – enough to cut and sew a jacket, but I learned what other weavers probably already know, which is that alpaca does not full like wool does when wet-finished. The fabric is fragile and unravels easily because alpaca, unlike wool, has no little scales reaching out to grab onto their neighbors. About a year or so after taking the fabric off the loom, I folded and clamped it and dyed it in indigo, itajime-style.

Another year on, I serged the edges of the pattern pieces as I cut them out, but if I pulled a bit too hard on the serger thread, that slipped right off too. I primarily used Vogue 8676, designed by Marcie Tilton, with elements from a couple of other patterns as well. I stitched every seam twice for strength, but that ended up perforating the cloth. This yarn was really meant for scarves and shawls, not tailored clothing. But I persisted toward my goal of a jacket, which I lined with Bemberg rayon, and fitted with snaps instead of buttons for closures.

Detail of jacket collar, snap closures and lining.

Detail of resist-dyed indigo on handwoven fabric.

2-Day workshop July 29-30, 2017 on the Oregon coast: Pattern on Cloth with Shibori and Indigo

May 5, 2017August 24, 2018 Leave a comment

Coming this summer: a 2-day weekend workshop on Shibori techniques and dyeing in an organic indigo vat. Please join me the weekend of July 29-30, 2017 at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the beautiful Oregon coast. On Day 1 we will view an inspirational slideshow, then build the natural indigo vat and practice a variety of resist techniques on fabric samples. On Day 2 we will dye the samples in indigo, then complete a cotton or rayon scarf to take home. Bring up to 8 ounces of your own fiber to resist-dye, if desired.