On one sunny autumn afternoon, I visited Art Studio Soyogo(アトリエ冬青、諏訪市) to experience plant dye.
We used leaves from a tree in the garden.
While boiling the leaves for about 20 minutes, I decided which fabric to dye and weighed it. Then soaked the material in warm water.
My sensei, Mrs. Kitazawa provided an easy to understand written instruction.
When the leaves are boiled, we strained the water and soaked the wet scarves into the pot. It was boiling hot but the scarves had to be stirred continuously for about 20 minutes.
Then it was time to rinse them.
After rinsing the fabrics throughly, they were dipped into a bucket of water with diluted iron which turn the color to dark grey. Again the scarves had to be stirred constantly to make the color settle evenly.
After about 20 minutes, the scarves were taken out, rinsed a couple of times and air dried in the shade. And it was ready to be worn!!
What a fun and beautiful experience!!