shibori + indigo = love

Shibori class floor

work drying & oxidising

one of my test pieces

another test piece of mine

other students' text pieces

There's nothing quite like trying something new to give you a buzz. Jo Fowles taught a shibori indigo dye workshop over the weekend at the wonderful Harvest Workroom. I went along on Sunday and helped out. Which meant I got to see Jo in action and participate in some of the fun. In short, I got my hands dirty - blue dirty - as anyone who has worked with indigo will tell you they get even with gloves on! Originally from London Jo is now based in Sydney and creates the most dreamy geometric inspired textiles based on a combination of techniques. She says she is "process driven" and this shows in her passion to get people working and trying things out. You must, must, must check out some of Jo's work here.

In the workshop we used a whole range of wonderful tools and paraphernalia to twist, tie, clamp and stuff into our textile pieces before dyeing. We then dunked these into indigo dye vats and waited to see what would result. There was quite a bit of excitement happening as each person untied, unwrapped or unclamped their work. There were lots of surprises and part of the learning was about letting going of expectations about what we thought would result to play and experiment and let the process show us what was possible. The indigo cloth spectacular at the back of the Harvest Workroom by mid afternoon was really something to be seen.

I'm told via a reliable source that Jo will be back at Harvest Workroom in January for more textiles fun. You can find all the information about that here. I think yesterday may have ignited a little fire for me. If only I could get my hands into an indigo vat on a regular basis!