Fast Project for 400

Let's start with a really fast fun project for 400. LOL or just you and your BFF (best fiber friend). You need an indigo dye kit, bucket, stir stick, rubber gloves, apron, old shoes, natural fiber cloth, watercolor paper, rinse bucket, clothespins, rubber bands, Tyvek paper for labels with safety pins, clothesline, a cool but sunny day and gorgeous garden to work in. Gorgeous garden is optional but oh so nice.  

We had all those things including the wonderful Fiber and Dye Garden at the Houston Center for Contemporary Crafts when the local members of the Surface Design Association demonstrated Indigo Dyeing for a Saturday Family Fun Day.  We used four Dharma's kits with indigo crystals to make four buckets of dye. We started about 30 minutes before the hoards of visitors arrived and it was simple and dependable.

Working in the garden on a beautiful spring day, we had two SDA members at each pot to do the dipping. Others were overseeing the folding, tieing, clothes-pinning, and rubber-banding of the hemmed handkerchiefs. It was a make-it-and-take project. Each handkerchief had a Tyvek label pinned on and Sharpies were available for them to put their name on their creation before it went into the pot.

While the SDA'er was holding the handkerchief under the surface of the indigo, they gave a short lecture on indigo dyeing and as each one was brought out in all its yellow green glory and slowly turned blue, there were smiles all around and comments about how amazing indigo is. Then the handkerchiefs got a quick rinse and were handed back to the owner to finish unfolding and hang out to dry. 

 

By the end of day - after 400 handkerchiefs were dyed, it was quite a wonderful blue clothesline. After the visitors had toured the rest of the craft demonstrations at the museum, they returned to pick up and take home their dried blue handkerchief.