Time in Indigo, Time in Mud

Learning to use traditional Indonesian dyes

I went to workshop on traditional Indonesian dyeing techniques, run by Threads Of Life. And found indigo dyeing is addictive. The bitter earthy aroma, watching the colour bloom on the cloth, standing together with other women working on textiles.

Indonesian women will add a special, secret herb or bark to the indigo ferment, drawn from the offerings made to the ‘owners’ - the spiritual beings of the land and the plants. These secret ingredients are passed down only from mother to daughter. If the chain of reproduction is broken, or separated, the secrets are gone. The secret ingredient can differ according to the ceremonial use the finished fabric will be used for. The fabrics are gifted or exchanged in weddings, births and funerals.

Light indigo blue is hard to get even - we carefully dip our scoured fabrics slowly slowly into the indigo vat - we are trying to avoid stirring up the indigo liquid and oxidizing it. Then under the liquid, we carefully and slowly rub each centimeter or fabric between our fingers so the dye soaks into the threads evenly. Then lift the fabric gently gently up into the air to oxidize - and watch the colour work it’s way from warm beige to greenish to indigo blue, reacting to the atmosphere. Squeeze out as much liquid as we can and dip again. Every dip makes the fabric go a little bit bluer.

Indigo plant, indigo fermenting, indigo dyeing

Our teacher asks us to go through this slow routine again and again, to loose count of how many times we have dipped the fabric, just dip and dip again. The vat is steamy and warm, we listen to frogs and insects in the tropical garden, we listen and talk to each other, women working on textiles together. The conversations are loose and gentle.

Some are impatient. Why can’t we just use a stronger mixture and get a good strong blue now? Because those who dye are not the impatient ones, we are told. If you can’t find peace and happiness in dipping and rubbing your fabric over and over again, being here with the aroma and the steam and the feeling of fabric under your hands, dyeing is not for you.

The colours we learn about and dye with are: indigo, jackfruit tree yellow, mangrove bark brownish red (Ceriops), and a blackish grey from mud.

Scouring the fabric, indigo hands, indigo notes

And this is how you make the mud dye (you will need to make two. Mixtures to alternately dip your fabric in, a tannin mix and a mud mix. Oh and of course a mordant, but I won’t go into that. You need to go out and collect a particular fallen leaf from a certain part of the forest in Flores Island for the mordant).

The tannin mixture should be from a plant that has a nice soft tannin. Garlic tannin is the best. Avocado leaves also have a nice weak tannin that is suitable. Woodfordia fruticosa can work too - collect a kilo of the tannin plant, add 20 litres of water. Boil, strain and leave to mature for a month.

Dig in a rice paddy to get your mud. But the first 20cm of mud is no good. It will have too much organic material in it, little bits of plants and animals. Beneath that, the mud is good. So dig your hole nice and deep to collect your mud.

Add enough water so it is all a nice milky texture, strain and leave to settle for a day. Pour off the water that has separated up.

Now add bran and the fermenting of your mud will start. In the morning, take your mud and bran outside into the warmth and stir it up well. In the evening, take it back inside to shelter. After five days of this, you should be able to start seeing a rusty colour coming through and you can start to dye with it.

How much colour has meant to us, how very important colour is in our lives! How much work humans will go to to bring colour into their lives! Because making the mud dye was the easiest of all the dyes to make that we learnt about.

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Threads of Life in Bali does an incredible work with women weavers of Indonesia, just look at this beautiful ikat weaving -

An ikat weaving from Rimbi, East Sumba in Indonesia. The weaving is titled Powerful Red Sea, with crayfish and seashell motifs. These are woven to show that the ancestors came to Sumba across the breadth of the ocean, and that the ocean is full of beauty.

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The best book about how massively important textiles (and always women’s work) has been in creating our culture:

Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years

by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

Totally worth digging in to.

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And this brought up the memory of a beautiful song, Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls: