Folded and dyed cotton
I’ve added Procion MX dyes to my bag of tricks recently.
It began when I was looking for new shibori techniques in the book “Shibori Designs and Techniques” by Mandy Southan. She gets some interesting results using reactive dyes in conjunction with indigo.
Living in the virtual desert that is Southern California, I’m always conscious of water usage. Ann Johnston, in her book Color By Accident, uses very small amounts of water with reactive dyes.
I tried a traditional shibori folding and dipping pattern on a fat quarter of Kona Cotton and got some interesting color splits on the folds. The process takes a much smaller amount of water than traditional indigo methods and while it will never reproduce or replace indigo in my practice, it’s an interesting augment.
folded and tied
folded
ready for the dye bath
dipped into a small amount of fiber reactive dye