Everything Indigo

by Maiwa - Friday, March 20, 2020

Handwoven cotton from Bengal. Natural indigo gives the blue, the gold lines are made from threads of wild tussar silk.

EVERYTHING INDIGO

Take a look at everything natural indigo can be.

MAIWA'S INDIGO CLOTHING

Let us unwrap a blue thread for you.

This thread begins at our workshop held during the Indigo Sutra conference in 2017 where we encouraged a natural dye revival with natural indigo. As a follow-up to that workshop we went on the road, visited rural dyers and helped to troubleshoot and perfect technique.

We kept returning each year. We saw the yarns that they dyed and then we were shown the fabric that they wove. We held it in our hands — we loved it. We placed a large order to encourage them to keep dyeing and weaving. Then, one day, those bolts arrived at our studio. We unrolled the bolt, took a deep breath, cut into it, and began to make the garments you see here.

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SCARVES & SHAWLS

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BEDDING

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INDIGO: THE JOURNEY FROM PLANT TO DYE

THE INDIGO HARVEST

In southern India indigo dye is obtained from Indigofera tinctoria. Indigofera is a beneficial crop because it returns nitrogen to the soil. In many places it is grown in rotation and simply ploughed under (without ever extracting the colour). When it is grown for the dye, the crop can be naturally weeded by pasturing cows or goats — they eat the weeds but not the indigo. Depending on the weather, a single plant can give 2 to 3 harvests a year.

INDIGO EXTRACTION

Once cut, the indigo plants are placed in a large extraction tank, covered with water and allowed to soak until they ferment. The fermentation transforms indican (present in the leaves) to indoxyl (a soluble form of indigo). The water containing indoxyl is drained off and then whipped to introduce oxygen. The oxygen transforms the indoxyl to indigo. The indigo settles to the bottom where it is collected and concentrated into cakes. This is powdered indigo - the most famous dye in the world.

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MAIWA'S NATURAL DYES

GET YOUR BLUES FROM US

Maiwa sells natural indigo extracted from crops grown in southern India. We carry everything you need to get started; like the natural indigo kit and keep going, like our largest size of indigo. In addition we offer an instruction sheet for Indigo and Woad and The Organic Vat.