Indigo Around the World

This is my last week in Bangkok. I managed to shake the flu I brought with me from Australia off. The hot weather helps. I have almost finished with the dental treatment I came here for. There has to be a future visit to complete the work next year. You might have noticed that there is no sight seeing on this visit. I came from Bangkok so I'm familiar with the city. Also I can't take the heat and humid weather very well. When I'm not at the dental clinic I visit giant air-conditioned malls to keep cool and sample some wonderful food. 

It's must be the love of blue colour and natural dye that attracted me to indigo. It seems that indigo is following me around the world! Everywhere I go I seem to run into indigo shops that either sell indigo dyed products or just use indigo items as display. Come along and I will show you some. 

One of the malls I went to is called Terminal 21. It's more like a world than a mall. There is Paris, London, Istanbul, Shengai, Tokyo, San Fansisco, Hollywood and of course Bangkok all under one roof. In this mall I came around the shop called Indigoskin. The window display stopped me in my tracks. It was closed that day. I went back this morning to see if it was open. Everything in the photo was only for display, drat! The very friendly assistant told me to go to Indigo House in Siam Paragon Mall. Luckily I had not been there before so off I went searching for Indigo House. When I got there, again, it was closed. No worries, the mall was huge and I love traditional Thai products on the same floor. I came across hand woven silk and cotton and other gorgeous handmade products. An hour later I went back and Indigo House was open. 

Here is the lovely Yelly, the owner of the shop. She was so friendly and helpful. Between her and I we pulled out nearly everything in the shop. Indigo fabrics came from the north eastern part of Thailand. Some were cotton and some were hemp.  

Lots of hand woven products made from indigo dyed fabric. In the above photo is a table cloth. It was very lovely and beautiful indigo blue as well.

Rolls and rolls of indigo dyed fabric for sale. How much blue fabric do I need? A lot I guess! I managed to restrain myself and only got one piece!

I got a bit of this Ikat fabric. It would be great to use it to make something wearable.

Lots and lots of little knick knacks there at well. All were hand made from natural Thai fabric. I also found a lovely natural dyed fabric. Dyed using bark. Of couse I have to have a bit of that too!

These were stuffed elephants made from remnants fabric. There were so cute for those elephant collectors, but I'm not so I left them well alone.

A bowl full of fine spun silk. I was told that they were from Laos and not for sale. Well that was good because I thought they would be perfect in Kumihimo braid. Something else I can do without! All in all I had a fabulous day chasing after indigo around the world. 

A little piece of Shabori as part of my vest I brought to work on this trip. It's really an eco dyed vest, but I have this one piece of vintage Shabori I wanted to include in it. I did enjoy stitching on it. 

In my last post I mentioned that I had dyed a few pieces of silk with cumin. I was wrong, it wasn't cumin; it was turmeric. I decided to open the bundles today. Here they are. The silk is nice and yellow after I left them for a week. The second piece from the left was dyed with green tea and rusty soda caps. The rest with turmeric. They all look lovely and yellow. I have some plans to use eco dyed and indigo fabric in some sort of quilt when I get back, so these pieces will be perfect for my project. 

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments on my last post. Sorry I didn't get back to you. Although I enjoy having my iPad with me, I feel that the iPad is clumsy to use in comparison to a laptop. I managed to blog with the iPad, but it takes twice as long as doing it on a computer or laptop. But I'm glad I had it with me otherwise I wouldn't be able to blog at all. I hope you enjoy my post from Bangkok. If you do not already know, I'm posting a daily photo on my 'Daily Life Inspiration' blog as well. I'm up to day 35 today. It has been fun choosing photos for that blog. Enjoy....

Until next time

Nat