Indigo resist techniques

Early in the 1990s I attended a lecture on indigo given by Jenny Balfour-Paul at the Crafts Council in London.

Her enthusiastic introduction to the subject of indigo led me on to reading, travel and more recently, to working with the dyestuff itself. Jenny's book Indigo, published by British Museum Press (now reprinted) is a classic source of information on the history, culture and chemistry of this amazing dye.

In recent years I have travelled to the islands of Flores and Sumba in Indonesia, where natural indigo is still used in the production of textiles. The image on the left shows an indigo dyer from the village of Nggela in Flores.

In 2000 I joined a weekend indigo workshop with Jenny Balfour-Paul and began to look at new resist techniques. These include the use of wax and pastes, clamping (itajime), pole-wrapping (arashi), stitching and tie-dye.

Japanese techniques, named in brackets above, have been a great inspiration. Some results are shown here. I normally use an indigo recipe using indigo grains, caustic soda and Hydros (sodium hydrosulphite / sodium dithionite).

Right: Folded silk noil clamped and tied prior to dyeing.

Fabric is first concertina-folded, then folded several times along its length in various ways, depending on the required pattern. Then it is clamped between wood blocks and tied firmly with cord. The pressure keeps the indigo from penetrating deeply into the folds.

Far right: After first dipping. Several dips are required to build up the colour. Depth of colour does not depend on the length of time in the vat, but the number of dips given and the strength of the vat.

Near left: Pole-wrapped crêpe de Chine scarf. In pole-wrapped (arashi) shibori the fabric is wound around a pole and then bound tightly in a spiral. Fabric can be compressed down tightly after binding. The sample on the left underwent one whole indigo session after which I felt it looked too pale, so I re-wrapped and dyed it a second time in a subsequent session. I used plastic downpipe rescued from a builder's skip for the pole.

Far left: crêpe de Chine stitched in spiral pattern and drawn up tightly before dyeing. This is a technique I have seen used on cloth from Nigeria.

Much of the work on this page was made by following the excellent information available in the book Shibori by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, Mary Kellogg Rice and Jane Barton. More information on the book from the Links page.

I have adapted many of the techniques learned while working with indigo to use with acid dyes. These scarves are clamped and dye is "injected" into the clamped area. Above: triangular fold, straight clamp. Right: horizontal fold, straight clamp

I have recently begun to work with some natural dyes, and overdyeing with synthetic indigo. My eventual intention will be to learn to make a fermented vat. On the left is a scarf using wax resist. Behind are two scarves with natural dye backgrounds with the ends dipped into the indigo vat. More images of a recent indigo session here.