Friday, July 13, 2012

Indigo Dye in Ganghwa Island-Seoul area

On my visit to Seoul, my dear friend Songhee took DH and I to Ganghwa Island. It is a beautiful island near Incheon in the Seoul area. We visited a gorgeous Bu-dist temple, and the tidal flats that are so important to the life of the islanders. If you come to visit, make sure you eat some of the delicious seafood that is only available in this area of the world. The link below from the Korean tourism department will give you information about the island and how to get there, etc.
  http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=943519
watching and learning from the Pro.
But since my friend knows that I love textiles, we also came here to visit this wonderful natural dyes studio. Check the link below to see Chunghee studio.(Google translator is not working here).
www.chunghee.co.kr
She is a lovely lady and a most talented fiber artist that uses traditional dyeing methods for her creations.
immersion of a cotton scarf on prepared indigo

The first opening of the scarf. The blue magically appears first as this green.

Hanging it to dry after two more immersions in the indigo (it dried as a Duke Blue, of course)

All the gorgeous fabrics drying on the line. The indigo and the clay colors.
Her studio is a traditional clay structure that is very cozy. She grew the indigo that we used to dye our scarves. She also uses natural clay, and other natural dyes. The environment, as well as the keeping traditional ways of dyeing are very important to her. She also showed us her beautiful work; but I can't find my pictures of them. She has clothing, bags, scarves, and so many lovely pieces. Sorry I don't have the pictures. Her husband served us tea that he grew; and a traditional pastry. Talk about a lovely day!

1 comment:

  1. How cool. Looks like you are having a great time.

    ReplyDelete

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