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

Shibori

This bright pink piece is dyed using the shibori method of dyeing.  It takes a little bit of time (not too too much) but it is well worth the efforts.  This particular piece was immersed in only one dye bath, but you still can see the depth of color and contrast giving the piece it's character.  The dyes do not penetrate into the fabric completely as the fabric itself is used as the resist, only the fabric in the outermost areas where the dye actually comes in contact with the fabric does the dye take hold.  The less the color saturation the less the dye was able to penetrate.  (I hope I am not getting to wordy with the explanation.)
I used a variegated thread to quilt this piece and a black binding to frame it. (more on this later).