Vivien Prideaux - Japanese Stencilling Workshop

Vivien Prideaux’s workshop this month was entitled “Japanese Stencilling”.  The group was first shown a vat of indigo dye and Vivien explained it was a mixture of henna, lime and indigo.  So we could see the creation of a vat she measured the ingredients on some scales and stirred it. 

We were then shown how to make stencils and two pastes which acted as resists and then it was play time.  Some people cut their own stencils and some used pre cut designs.  We then put the stencil on our fabric and used a credit card to scrape the resist over the stencil.  The fabrics were then left to dry.

By mid afternoon we had all a number of pieces of fabric ready for the final stage which was to dip it in the indigo vat.  Vivien was not happy that the vats were creating the right strength of colour for us to dye our materials so it was decided that we would all do some quick test samples and agreed to postpone the workshop for a few months.  We can now look forward to stage two at the end of September.

Report by Ros