Learn to make pattern and design using soy wax as a resist on your fabric, then dye in the indigo vat.
We will doodle and print on fabric with non-toxic soy wax to make quilting fabric ready for you to make your one of a kind quilt.
Soda ash treated fabric available for purchase at the shop for use in class.
Wax and all other tools are provided.
You’ll dye your patterned fabric in a magical indigo dye vat. Dress in clothes (and shoes!) that can be stained blue.
TWO DAYS LEFT!! For Deep Into Indigo Retreat Early Bird Pricing. Come and play with us. You’ll learn how to dye with indigo, shibori and batik as well as just have fun and chill with creative women.
My plan for the Deep Into Indigo Retreat is to teach shibori techniques of many kinds, batik techniques and how to make henna, fructose and iron vats and to dye, dye dye!!! And also to – with the help of the awesome Jenina Mella – feed people well in a beautiful and warm environment and bring the fun!!
I hope you’ll join us. Early bird pricing ends on June 15th!!!
Today, I’m dyeing fat quarters on this beautiful summer day. #blog
I will be doing a live demo of wax batik. I’ll also have some indigo dyed batik and shibori fat quarters for sale at this handcrafted home and lifestyle goods made in the midwest. It’s a modern-mercantile style event. Convene to shop, browse, carouse, sample and seek. With the wares of midwest artisans, tastes of local small batch food and brews, and the ambient sounds and sights of music and live demos, there will be much to shop, explore and savor.
This is a free event open to all.
I made a mighty mess. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I mixed up some rice flour and Gum Arabic, which is also known as sugar glue. It’s made with the sap from the acacia tree. I had tried to make a resist from just Gum Arabic – I swear I read a tutorial for that somewhere – and it didn’t really resist the fabric very well. Here’s the Gum Arabic alone:
Nice, but a little too subtle for me. I wanted to make something resist-ier. Hence, the rice flour. I just stirred a little at a time in to my leftover Gum Arabic goo until it was the consistency of glue…I guess. 
Then I painted it on. I laid the fabric on some wax paper because it bleeds though. It dried really fast, though. I was messy and didn’t really think much about the pattern. It was drippy and messy to work with and, for me, that makes it fun. 
Here it is after a coupla dips. The resist did get sticky again. I left it to dry for a few days though I think 24 hours should be plenty. We run out of good dye days in Wisconsin pretty early and I had to wait for the weather. I think I dipped it three times. The vat was old so the result is light.Boom! I love the level of resist I got. There are some bonus little drippy bits here and there. My random pattern makes me happy too. I will do this again for sure.