100% natural blue dye
A plant: the indigo plant, called chàm in Vietnam
An essential element to obtain the blue color, the cham leaves come from one of the species of indigo, a 1.50m shrub present in Vietnam. To obtain 3m of blue fabric, 50cm wide, you need 1 square meter of cham.
The cham leaves are then washed and soaked: after 7 days, you get a very blue water. Then you remove the leaves and add a little lime water (made from industrial limestone, because it is difficult to find in nature these days ).
This water can be kept for a year, provided that you add more recent cham plant water and ash water every day, dye the threads and finally stir and add more ash water!
The weavers put on gloves before dipping the cotton threads into the jar of blue dye. The thread is dipped, wrung out, re-dipped and the operation is repeated several times to ensure that the cotton takes on the blue color uniformly. Then the threads are left to dry.
It takes 10 to 15 days to complete the dyeing process. Depending on the quality of the yarn and its nature, whether it is linen, cotton or silk, you will not obtain the same effect!
5 shades of indigo
The weavers have managed to obtain 5 shades of blue, from a light blue to obtain 5 shades of blue from a light blue to a navy blue to a gray blue! They are obtained by putting the threads more or less times in the dye bath and by washing or not the threads between dyeings. Navy blue requires dyeing the cotton threads 10 to 15 times!
Each season has its variations
Depending on the weather conditions and the seasons, indigo leaves do not give the same blue: it is therefore not easy to keep the same color all year round. But that is the charm... and the weavers have found the technique: they no longer count the times they repeat the dyeing process until they obtain the desired color, while keeping a sample at each stage, like so many shades of blue! A wash is also enough to lighten a blue that is a little too dark.
100% natural collections
Thanks to the know-how of the weavers, the fabrics woven in the Na Sang cooperative 1 are all naturally dyed and give magnificent colours in particular the blue ! To take care of them, Opportunity for Women advises you to wash them by hand in cold water or dry clean and not to put them in the sun to keep the colors vibrant.