sweetgeorgia

Indigo dyeing in Kyoto

Near the end of October, I took a very short, very last-minute trip to Tokyo and Kyoto at what ended up being a most economically unfortunate time of the year. The Japanese Yen shot up relative to my Canadian dollar, leaving me with some pretty sad (yarn)buying power. But, I did go to Japan, and I did buy yarn… but more on that in another future post.

Being in Kyoto, mere blocks away from the traditional weaving and textiles district in the city, I sought out the Aizenkobo workshop. Aizenkobo is a indigo dye workshop and retail shop that produces a number of hand-dyed clothing items using techniques such as shibori (binding and dyeing), sashiko embroidery (hand stitching), ikat and double ikat (resist dyeing and weaving) and also natural dyeing with plant dyes.

Shibori dyed Japanese cotton scarves

Rolls of double-ikat handwoven fabric

Indigo dyed and overdyed sashiko thread

Sashiko on a pillowcase

I met the third-generation indigo dyer, Kenichi Utsuki, who described how his grandfather was originally an obi sash maker and weaver and how they started indigo dyeing. His father ran two businesses — both the obi sash making and indigo dye shop — but discovered that obi sash making was no longer a viable or profitable business. Their family switched to indigo dyeing alone, sold all their weaving looms, and focused entirely on natural process indigo dyeing. He has since been invited to numerous universities around the world to lecture on natural indigo dyeing. His wife, Hisako, is the designer of many of their garments.

Kenichi Utsuki stirring up one of three dye vats

Frothy and foaming indigo flower on the top of the vat, after stirring

His naturally fermented indigo process is significantly different from other chemical indigo processes in that it results in improved colour permanence and vibrancy in the indigo dyed fabric. Whereas we use chemicals like thiourea dioxide or sodium hydrosulfite, his natural ferment process uses wheat husk powder, limestone powder, lye ash, and sake. It allows the dye vats to run continuously throughout the year. I think it gets pretty cold in Kyoto in winter, but apparently they dye through the winter too. Also somewhat controversial is heating indigo vats, and here I could see that he has a heater inserted in the vat. I even watched him taste the dye liquor… eeek.

The natural indigo process produces an incredibly vibrant, saturated and clear blue colour that does not fade. Even pieces that he brought out that were 50 or 60 years old were still a bright, vivid “eggplant” blue. For comparison, he brought out a number of chemical process indigo pieces from all different countries, and the blue colour was much less saturated… greyed. Some of their blues are so intense and deep that they come close to black. On cotton and linen, something like 15 or 20 dips are required to generate the colour range. On silk, however, the number of dips increases to 40 to 60 even. One madder-dyed scarf he showed me was dyed and washed 18 times in order to get it’s intense, beautiful red colour.

Kanoko Shibori tied fabric prior to dyeing

...after dyeing...

...and after steaming.

Utsuki explained how they do not do any of the shibori tying at their workshop and instead hire factories in Nagoya to do this work. He says that each family has their own tying method and pattern that they do over and over for their whole lives. They don’t switch patterns. They simple make the same pattern again and again. That kind of steadfast dedication to one thing allows them to develop true mastery and virtuosity. It makes me wonder, if you think your job is boring, I wonder what they think of their jobs. If they wake up in the morning and think, ah crap, another scarf, another day of making knots… But we are grateful for their exquisite skill and the beautiful things that are produced from their hands.

If you are interested, I brought back two shibori scarves, one madder dyed scarf, and two skeins of the most gorgeous indigo-dyed silk threads that you can take a look at on Saturday at the open house. We are on from 2 to 5 pm on Saturday afternoon at #401-228 East 4th Avenue at Main Street in Vancouver. Go vote for mayor… and then come play with yarn!

Dyeing and overdyeing

It’s raining again in Vancouver. But let’s rewind back the last few days of dyeing…

These are hunks of Gotland fleece that were originally dyed in osage, logwood, and osage + green acid dye that have been overdyed in indigo. The process helps unify all the colours and I’m excited about putting this through the carder.

Just being surrounded by colour, even on a gloomy dreary day like today, makes me happy.

Accidents in carding.

It was not a happy meeting today, the skin of my hand and the sharp metal teeth of my electric drum carder. However, it was a fantastic meeting this morning with a lovely fellow fibre fanatic who inspired me to unleash said drum carder. But rather than obsessing about my scraped hand, let’s obsess about the pretty puffs that it produced…

I swear, I’ve been trying to be completely authentic with this fleece. Purchased in raw form, I was on my hands and knees by the bathtub washing this thing. Then, delicately dyeing chunks of it in natural dye… my plan was to then card and spin all of it into worsted weight yarn which would then end up in a handwoven blanket… and then I got bored.

I didn’t want to spin a whole pound of cochineal-dyed fleece and then another pound of logwood-dyed fleece, etc. So instead, I just started to randomly drop hand teased fleece into the feed tray of the carder. These are like happy accidents. I hope they’ll end up spinning into some nicely heathered and randomly coloured yarns. And, most inauthentic of all, I have a large chunk of fleece that I overdyed in green acid dye. I thought all those natural pinks and purples needed a hit of green.

And for a nice hit of colour to dream about this weekend…

The little studio that could.

It’s pouring rain again in Vancouver and I have been dyeing nearly every day since Saturday. We’re trying to fill up this big place with colour, yarn and fibre… but no matter how much I dye every day, I don’t seem to be able to make a dent. It’s happening slowly though… colour is taking over the concrete grey room and eventually, we’ll be suffocated by colour. Yay.

I’ve been honest with myself and decided that I love dyeing silk… the vibrancy and saturation is just unparalleled with other fibres. Maybe dyeing BFL fibre comes close… or mohair locks… but honestly. I love silk.

Dyeing is idiosyncratic sometimes. It can be unnerving but also so very interesting when you attempt to dye fleece a green colour… and it turns out to have purple in it.

For whatever reason, the dye stock separated as certain dye colours were drawn to different sections of the raw fleece. Green liked the tips. Reddish purple liked the shorn side. Very interesting. I like these kinds of surprises.

And we keep chugging away and dyeing every day.

The gift of silk and light.

Years and years ago, a fellow blogger, Freecia, was inspired to buy me something at a local fibre fair and send it to me as a gift. This was completely and totally out of the blue. She wrote me this lovely note and sent it along with a bit of the most divinely smooth and glowing cultivated bombyx silk fibre. Bombyx silk is still like the caviar of fibres to me. Absolutely delicious. I was very touched by her thoughtfulness and saved the silk package in my A-list stash… and sadly, it stayed there for years.

Late last fall, when I came to the supposed crossroads (why do I keep meeting this crossroad?) about whether or not I could continue to dye, I happened to find this gift and the note that accompanied it. And after my year-long hiatus, this was the first thing that inspired me to dye. I ventured down into the cold, dark laundry room and randomly dyed the package of silk in turquoises, blues, greens and browns. Distraught and sad at the time, I absentmindedly continued to pile on colour after colour… until I realized, “hey, this doesn’t look good at all”. The whole pile of silk seemed like it had been covered with murky, black dye and looked like a disaster. What a waste of a beautiful gift? I had ruined it! I was angry and disappointed with myself, even more convinced that I should just give away all my dye stuff and walk away.

Anyway, I set the dye with a bit of steam and then let it cool and exhaust. Days later when I finally went back down to the laundry room, I poked a bit at the crinkly dried silk roving and all this lightness came pouring out. I had been so absentminded that the dyes hadn’t penetrated all the way through the silk! I really was a dumbass. What I thought was a complete disaster, ended up being this beautiful, subtle mix of blues, warm greys and light. I spent a long time going over the roving, looking at the transitions between colours and values. Maybe I see things where there isn’t anything, but to me this was all about how things really are never as bad as you think they are. There is light in everything. Sometimes, I just need to be patient and I find light where I least expect it.

Thank you Freecia.

* Okay, honestly, my mistake was dousing the silk roving in too much vinegar to begin with. So as soon as I put dye on it, it would strike and fix to the outside of the roving. If you’re going to dye silk roving, use less vinegar in the soaking bath OR work the dye through the roving really well OR gently spread the roving apart so you can access all the bits of silk that need to be dyed. Personally, I don’t really mind undyed bits because it’s like “whitespace”. It offsets and makes the colours more interesting.