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How-to; Improve any eco print in 5 minutes

Sometimes an ecoprinted silk can be a bit too simple. If you did not work with any natural dye in the process it can happen that the result lacks a bit of depth that happens when we are working with for example a dye blanket or other ore intricate techniques.

And sometimes we just do not know what happened.

I want you to know you can always think of a 'flop' as a first layer of something new. Just use it for another print! It's also possible to try a dip in an indigo vat, but I know this is not for everyone. An indigo vat takes time to set up and you do need a few ingredients. If you do feel you are ready to get one started I want to encourage you to do so, I made the whole process super simple for you set-by-step here.

I also want to encourage you to try something fast and simple that does not require much time, effort or materials. Green indigo!

I discussed green indigo before in this previous blog. On the various forums you can see quite a bit of dyeing with fresh indigo leaves but you do not need that at all! You can use this ground indigo powder.

So what do you do?

Take a bowl, add warm water and two spoons of green indigo powder for a thin silk scarf of 45-200 cm.

Water that is too hot will bring out the indorubin, making your fabric more of a purple hue. Too cold will not release the indigotin. You can see the difference between the hot and the warm water in this sample on your left.

So you have your warm water, and your indigo powder and you stir it right in making it a bit of a pancake batter'ish mixture. Add your fabric to this mix.

Now start scrunching that fabric! Do not let it sit around, just handle it as if you are making bread dough, for around 5 minutes. Rinse and hang out to air. Or hand out to air and then rinse, whatever works better for you.

That's it.

That simple.

You will get a rich, teal colour that is fast.