I’ve been working with silk from India, experimenting with combinations of Indigo, Persimmon, Rust, Logwood and Pomegranate natural dyes and various Shibori techniques.
Tag Archives: rust
Jamdani Dyed with Indigo and Rust
Jamdani Silk Dyed with Indigo and Rust
Silk Jamdani dyed with Indigo and Rust.
This is a piece of silk Jamdani fabric that I brought back from Calcutta last February. Jamdani weaving is found in Bengal and Bangladesh. It is a supplementary weft technique of weaving, somewhat similar to tapestry. The standard weft creates a fine, sheer fabric while the supplementary weft with thicker threads, in this case metallic red and gold threads, adds the pattern. Each supplementary weft motif is added separately by hand by interlacing the weft threads into the warp with fine bamboo sticks using individual spools of thread. The traditional art of weaving Jamdani has been declared by Unesco as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Indigo
During my recent trip to India I bought a number of exquisite silk scarves, mostly from Calcutta and Bengal. I’ve dyed them with Indigo plus a bit of Iron Rust and Lac.
I made an organic Indigo vat using rotting bananas as the reducing agent.
Michel Garcia’s recipe. It works well!
Silk Scarves with Natural Dyes
I have been dyeing a series of silk scarves with combinations of Indigo, Rust and Blood Root/Sanguineria Canadensis.
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