It’s nice to be here now right in the middle of slow season with the farm sleeping off the winter so I can delve into textile work. My studio is heated by a wood stove so every cold studio day begins by starting a fire early in the morning. Then I head back to the warm house to give the fire time to conquer the cold.
A few weeks back I felt inspired to try my first clay resist indigo experiment. I went ahead and mixed up a double batch of clay resist paste following the recipe in one of my favorite natural dye books The Art and Science of Natural Dyes.
In true Sara fashion I wasn’t going to let the fact that this was my first time ever working with clay resist paste slow me down so I went ahead and spent an entire day painting clay resist polka dots on two 3.5 yard lengths of hemp fabric.
I didn’t have anything bigger than a 5 gallon indigo vat set up at the time so I measured out the ingredients for a light blue yielding 1-2-3 fructose vat. I wrote a post about how I set up a light blue vat here. My vision for this yardage was to make white polka dots on a light blue background.
Once the vat was set up I wrapped it in blankets to keep it warm and let it do it’s magic of reducing. The next morning it was looking good and reduced. The temperature was still very warm which is normally totally fine so I went ahead and began dipping.
This first dip was pretty successful and I felt excited and quite proud of myself! It was just as I hoped it would be. White polka dots on a light blue background.
I totally should’ve stopped here but I felt like I should do another dip. This fabric was destined to become a quilt back so I wanted to follow through with at least one more dip to ensure the most permanent indigo bond to the fibers. The clay was kind of still there so I took my chances and dipped again. In most cases double and triple dipping is advisable but I learned the hard way that in my particular situation it wasn’t a good idea. When I removed the piece from the vat the dots were totally gone. Ahhh! All that work painting dots dissolved away in the vat. I learned afterwards that my vat temperature was too hot for the clay to withstand. Also the amount of yardage I was dyeing was too much even for my 29 gallon vat. The fabric was totally rubbing all over itself scratching those clay dots right off. For the second 3.5 yard piece I repainted the dots before dipping them again and made sure the temperature was cool and the clay resist withstood the second dip a lot better. I’ll try and try again until I figure out all the clay resist secrets but enough respect. I’ll proceed with much smaller pieces as I learn the ways. The best part about learning the hard way is you don’t forget. I’ll never make this mistake again. Next time I dabble in clay resist I hope to have a success story to share!
