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Westlake Giveaway!

There are only 2 weeks left until my biggest show of the year, the One Of A Kind Show! To celebrate my 5th year there, I'm giving away an Arctic Headband and two tickets to the show!

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Experiments in Natural Dyeing: Fresh Indigo (Polygonum tinctorium)

I've done a fair bit of indigo dyeing using the powdered, pre-reduced indigo and have always found it completely magical, and pretty simple to achieve beautiful results. This year, I asked my friends Glynis and Fraser of Aldergrove Farm to grow some fresh indigo for me, so I could try to take the process all the way back to the source (as well as use certified organic indigo). So, in late September, I picked up a big ol' bag of Japanese Indigo (Polygonum tinctorium) from them at the farmer's market and set to work. Below, I'll share the method I used to extract the indigo and make a dye vat, as well as several stumbling blocks I experienced along the...

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