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Indigo dips

I had a question the other day about how to get a dark color with indigo. The answer is many dips, But words are not nearly as effective as a picture, sweetgeorgia posted a picture of 10 dips . Scroll down to the 2nd picture and you can see the progression from 1 dip (lt. blue) to 10. Looks to me like some are dry and some are wet and wet makes cloth look darker, even so you get the idea. Indigo is not for the one-shot-mamas.

Posted by Karren on September 29, 2006 01:44 PM |


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Absolutely. And everything dries SO MUCH lighter! I dipped some stitched cotton many, many times looking for a really dark, nearly black, colour and it ended up drying medium blue! I guess it takes a lot of experience and getting to know your indigo vat in order to know what to expect!

Posted by: Felicia from sweetgeorgia | September 29, 2006 08:02 PM

Indigo is by far, the hardest dye I've ever worked with. It requires the most knowledge/experience from the dyer. Is the vat properly reduced?, does it have enough indigo for the next dip? Ironically it is one of the oldest and most wide spread dyes. You did see the entry on Dark Indigo, http://entwinements.com/blog-mt3/2006/08/dark_indigo.html and the common use of tannins (tea or other) to help with dark indigo.

Posted by: Karren | October 1, 2006 12:10 PM

Karen Brito, I am so glad I found your website. I use your book and follow your instructions on pleating silk. Now I am developing my own ideas using the pleating techniques. It's great that you don't mind sharing you experience with Shibori techniques. Thank you

Posted by: Odell Plantin | September 11, 2007 07:01 AM

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