Dye

Lift a piece of cotton out of an indigo vat and it isn’t blue. It’s green, a murky yellow-green that looks completely wrong. Then the air reaches it, and within a minute or two the cloth turns blue right in your hands. That one moment is why indigo dye has held people’s attention for thousands of years. It’s also the first thing we show visitors at Anaprinta, a family-run block printing studio in Bagru, near Jaipur. The studio is led by Anup Chhipa, a fifth-generation block printer, and indigo is one of the natural dyes we work with, along with madder and turmeric. This guide covers what indigo dye really is, how natural indigo dye is made from a leaf, why a dark indigo color takes patience, how to make indigo colour at home, and what growing indigo needs in the US, UK and India. And if you’d rather see it than read about it, our block printing workshops in Bagru include indigo dyeing. What Is Indigo Dye? Indigo dye is a deep blue dye that traditionally comes from the leaves of Indigofera plants, mainly Indigofera tinctoria. It is a vat dye: it has to be made soluble in an oxygen-free bath first, and it only turns blue when the fabric meets air. Three things are worth knowing before we go further. First, no plant actually contains blue. The leaves hold a colourless compound called indican, and the blue shows up only after fermentation and oxygen do their work. A Rutgers University dye research blog points out that over two hundred plants, from different families, make the same indigo precursor. Different plants, same blue. Second, most indigo dye made today is synthetic. Wikipedia puts it at around 80,000 tonnes a year as of 2023, mostly for denim, where one pair of jeans takes just 3 to 12 grams of dye. Third, the name is a clue to where it came from. Indigo comes from the Greek indikon, meaning “Indian”, which the Romans turned into indicum. A Short History of Indigo Dye (and Why India Is Part of It) India sits right at the centre of this story. Fibre2Fashion’s overview of indigo says Indigofera tinctoria was first domesticated in India, and mentions manuscripts from around the 4th century BC that refer to it. For centuries, Europe leaned on woad, a blue dye from a different plant, while indigo arrived from India as an expensive import. In the 1500s, France and Germany even banned imported indigo to protect their own woad growers. Then chemistry stepped in. A laboratory route to indigo was worked out in 1882, and by about 1900 natural indigo was no longer the only source. For a lot of indigo farmers, growing it stopped paying. Today there’s a small comeback. Craft studios, denim makers and a few farmers are returning to natural indigo dye, partly for sustainability and partly because people want a slower, more traditional dye. How Natural Indigo Dye Is Made From a Leaf Natural indigo dye is made in four stages. This is the traditional version, as Heddels describes it: Japan has its own version. Persicaria leaves are composted for three to four months into a material called sukumo, which is the base of Japanese indigo dyeing. The numbers explain why natural indigo dye costs more. Heddels notes that you need roughly 10 to 20 kg of leaves to get 1 kg of usable pigment. That’s a lot of plants for a small jar of powder. How Indigo Dye Works on Fabric Indigo doesn’t dissolve in water. To dye with it, you “reduce” the powder into a soluble form called leuco-indigo, which is yellow-green. Cloth goes into this vat and soaks up the leuco-indigo. Once it’s out in the air, oxygen turns it back into insoluble blue indigo, now trapped in the fibres. The Rutgers blog adds a detail most people miss: indigo mostly sits in the fibres mechanically rather than bonding with them. That’s why indigo dye rubs and fades, and why denim fades so beautifully. What this means in practice: Indigo Dye in Bagru: Where Mud Meets Blue Bagru printing and indigo belong together. The Chhipa community has block printed here for generations, and Global INCH records the traditional palette as deep red, indigo-blue, green, iron-black and marigold yellow. The technique most tied to indigo is Dabu, a mud-resist method. Mud paste is block-printed onto the cloth, the cloth is dipped in the indigo vat, and the mud stops the dye from reaching the pattern. Once the cloth is sun-dried and the mud washed out, the motifs stay pale against the blue. Wikipedia’s page on Dabu mentions a local story that the method was found by accident, when mud-stained fabric resisted indigo. Our two-day workshop teaches Dabu resist along with indigo and kashish (ferrous sulphate) dyeing. If you want more background first, read what hand block printing is or our guide to natural dyeing workshops in Rajasthan. Indigo also works beautifully with resist folding, which we cover in our tie dye techniques guide. How to Make Indigo Colour: Paint Mix or Dye Vat? When people ask how to make indigo colour, they usually mean one of three things. If you mean paint or pigment: indigo is blue with a little red. Nerolac’s mixing guide suggests about 80 parts blue to 20 parts red for a classic indigo, a trace of black to go darker, and a dried test patch before you commit. Ultramarine makes a good base. Add the red slowly, because too much tips it into violet. If you mean dye: you need indigo powder, an alkali such as lime, and a reducing agent such as fructose. Botanical Colors teaches this as the 1-2-3 vat, with step-by-step guides. When the vat is ready, the liquid turns clear yellow-green and a coppery film forms on top. If you grow your own leaves: the simplest route is fresh-leaf dyeing. The Simple Things shares a silk scarf project from Indigo Garden London: rinse the tops

Tie dye techniques look complicated until you try one. Then you realise it is mostly folding, tying and a little patience. The folds you make decide where the dye goes, and the dye decides how soft or sharp the pattern turns out. The fabric does the rest. This guide walks through ten tie dye techniques you can try at home, from the easy scrunch to shibori and Bandhani dots. You will also find the tie and dye materials you need, which fabric tie and dye works best on, and what to do if you want to dye silk or satin. At Anaprinta, our block printing studio in Bagru near Jaipur, we work with natural dyes and resist methods every day, so we have written this the way we would explain it to someone standing next to us at the dye table. What is tie and dye? Tie and dye is a resist dyeing method. You tie, fold, twist or stitch cloth so that dye cannot reach certain parts. When you open the cloth, the protected areas stay light and the exposed areas carry the colour. You will see two names for it. In India and the UK people say “tie and dye”. In the US it is “tie-dye”. It is the same craft. It is also very old. In Rajasthan and Gujarat, Bandhani is made by pinching tiny points of cloth and tying each one with thread, which gives the dotted patterns you see on dupattas and sarees. Leheriya, popular in Rajasthan, uses rolled and tied cloth to create diagonal wave stripes. In Japan the same idea is called shibori. Modern tie dye techniques are simply new, faster cousins of these traditions. Tie and dye materials: what you need before you start You do not need a studio. Most tie dye materials are cheap, easy to find, and often already at home. One tip from experience with dyeing in general: put down more plastic than you think you need. Dye travels. Fabric tie and dye: which fabric works best? Fabric matters more than most beginners expect. Dye bonds with fibres, so the fibre decides the colour you get. Cotton, linen, hemp and rayon are the easiest. They take fibre-reactive dye well and give bright, lasting colour. If you are choosing fabric for tie and dye for the first time, a plain white or cream cotton is the safest start. Blends are less predictable. The more polyester a fabric has, the paler and patchier the colour will be, because polyester does not accept the same dyes. Silk and wool are protein fibres and need a different dye. Here is a quick reference. Fabric Dye to use Activator Notes Cotton, linen, hemp, rayon Fibre-reactive dye Soda ash Easiest, strongest colour Silk (including silk satin) Acid dye Vinegar or citric acid Do not use soda ash Wool, nylon Acid dye Vinegar or citric acid Handle gently when wet Polyester, polyester satin Disperse dye High heat Hard to do at home Cotton-polyester blends Fibre-reactive dye Soda ash Colour comes out pale Always check the care label first, then dye a small test piece before you commit the whole cloth. Tie dye satin fabric Satin is a weave, not a fibre, and that is where people get caught out. A satin can be made from silk, polyester, cotton (sold as sateen) or a blend. What you can do with it depends on what it is made of. If your satin is silk, you can dye it with acid dye and vinegar, and the shine makes colours look deep and rich. If it is cotton sateen, treat it like any other cotton. If it is polyester satin, ordinary home dyes will barely stick, and you would need disperse dye and heat close to boiling. For a first try, we would not recommend that route. Satin is also slippery. Folds slide open, so use strong thread or sturdy bands instead of thin elastic, and tie firmly without crushing the cloth. Simple tie dye techniques like the scrunch, pleated folds and ombre suit tie dye satin fabric best. Complicated folds tend to loosen mid-dye. Tie and dye silk fabric Silk is strong when dry and delicate when wet, so go gently. Wash it with a mild soap, keep the water lukewarm, and never wring it hard. Silk is a protein fibre, so skip the soda ash completely. Strong alkali can damage it. Use acid dye with vinegar or citric acid, and fix the colour the way your dye maker says, since many acid dyes need heat to set. Scarves, dupattas and stoles are the usual choices for tie and dye silk fabric, and the soft, blended edges you get on silk are exactly why it is so popular. Dry it flat in the shade. Get the fabric ready Good prep is the quiet reason some tie dye looks bright and some looks tired. 10 tie dye techniques to try The best folds only use a handful of moves: scrunching, twisting, pleating, rolling and binding. Start with the first few and work your way down. 1. Scrunch (crumple) Pinch the fabric and push it into a loose, flat disc with random folds. Hold it with two or three bands. Apply colour on both sides and let the dye find its own way. This is the most forgiving of all the tie dye techniques, which is why it works so well for kids and first-timers. Best for: beginners, soft watercolour looks, multi-colour palettes. 2. Spiral Lay the fabric flat, pinch the centre and twist until the whole piece coils into a flat circle. Put 3 bands across it so it looks like a pie cut into six wedges. Colour each wedge differently. The result is the classic swirl. Best for: t-shirts, rainbow colours, bold designs. 3. Bullseye Pinch the fabric at the point you want as the centre and pull it upward. Place bands down the length at even spacing. Dye the sections between the bands in alternating colours