Dyeing with Indigo

I am taking a workshop this week at Sorrento Centre that focuses on dyeing fabric with natural indigo dye. It is such fun to be a participant in the class and to have fun of playing with fabric for hours each day.

This workshop is led by Thomas Roach who is a talented textile artist from Vancouver and he is preparing vats of dye for us and teaching us all about indigo as well as shibori stitching techniques. I have never worked with indigo before and I love the way it turns from green to blue once it comes out of the vat and hits the air ... who knew!! For two days we have been creating samples on cotton and silk and tomorrow we will start work on a larger piece, a personal prayer cloth, using some of these techniques.

Here is a photo of Thomas and a couple of the participants dipping their samples into the vat . . .

I will try to remember to take some pictures of our samples and post them later ... they are gorgeous!

Side two of the Prayer / Inspirational Flags

Because I created these flags with a back side to camouflage some of my stitching, I decided to also add more design elements to the reverse side ... think of them hanging on a clothes line in the garden or from the ceiling in your office, where they can be seen from both sides.

The first flag is "dream" and I have added two little patches of the fabric stitched with primitive hand stitches and a few little beads.  The drift of seed stitches comes through from the front of the flag where it was also a design element.

The centre flag is "love" and some of the words from 1Corinthians are written on this flag. I have also used the screen-printed tree with a few little hearts added as leaves on the tree.

The third flag is "smile" and I stencilled this word into the centre of the stitched heart (which is also part of the design on the other side of the flag). I added a few French knots, a little beaded patch and a ribbon of frayed silk fibre that hangs over the primitive stitching that comes through from the front.

This has been a delightful project to work on and it really has been inspirational, soothing, and thought-provoking as I worked through my choice of text and stitch.

Registration is now open for this workshop at Sorrento Centre (www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca) or phone (250) 675-2421 or toll free 1-866-694-2409.