Sunday, July 3, 2011

Take a Look at This

"Twists and Turns in the Road" 
  Indigo is one of the more time consuming dye methods and takes patience as you must prepare your fabrics for the dye process, have designs in mind and if necessary stitched or drawn out on your fabric, and  have your dye vat ready to go.  It sounds like much work but it is all well worth the extra effort.  As I have said previously indigo is one of those dyes that is seemingly "magical".  When you first put your beautiful white fabric into the dye vat you are soaking it for only a couple of minutes to achieve a pretty blue color.  When you remove it carefully from the vat it is green - not just any green but a yellowy-green that might be somewhat disappointing but only wait a few seconds as the dye oxidizes the color become more of an emerald green and eventually turns to blue.  With each successive dip it becomes deeper and deeper until you feel that the fabric has the color depth you are looking for.  Above you can see one of the quilts that I made a few years ago using a shibori method and indigo. The variations in color depth show that the more times the fabric is dipped into the vat the deeper the color.
  Have a look at this website, Carol Anne Grotrian has some fabulous quilts to show you.  There are some pretty impressive indigo quilts on the site.  The stitching itself tells the tale of time as well as some of the subject matter she uses as inspiration.  They are well executed with beautiful detail and depth allowing the viewer to have the feeling of being there.  She has captured the Japanese style quite well using shibori methods and indigo.  If you like indigo and shibori you will love this peek into her world.
  Also on her site are other quilts from earlier periods of her work. Please have a look there is much to see. http://www.carolannegrotrian.com/index.htm

No comments:

Post a Comment

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...