I spent a lot of time in June dipping in my indigo dye pot. I dyed and overdyed treasured bits of fabric.: baby blankets, remnants of old quilts, bits of lace, repurposed shirts. I experimented with heavy paper and wooden buttons.
Part of the fun is the surprise element. As time goes by, the vat becomes weaker and the color less intense. Of course, any blue is beautiful to me, dark, light, and all shades between the extremes. Every fiber reacts to the dye differently, and the results change based on how many times a fabric is dipped.
In an earlier post, I’ve written more details about the dyeing process. And, if you want to see more work with my results, type “indigo” in the search box and you’ll find finished art quilts which included some of the pieces I had dyed.
Many of these recent bits of blue will become part of future pieces of art, but I made a journal keepsake preserving many swatches of treasured blues. There are sixteen pages cut from old quilt remnants in shades of white. Every added snippet of fabric, button, bead, and even thread, holds a memory of the search, the find, the experimentation with its color. Preserving stories doesn’t always need words.
