Sakon Nakhon, the ‘City of Indigo
A local indigo or Cram is one of natural dyes.
Indigo is natural color which was discovered as part a legacy from their ancestors through learning and transmission from generation to generation with abundance resources which can be found in locally.
Creativity in making beautiful ground textures shows the expression of the lifestyle of the people in the past through the pattern and natural color. Therefore, indigo cotton became a famous OTOP product in Sakon Nakhon province,
Natural Indigo is very hard and does not dissolve in water, but you need to get it into as fine of particles as possible. Soak it overnight in a cup of hot water, and blend it in a blender with the soaking water. Next strain it through some cheesecloth and scrape the residue out and blend it again. This will give you very good results.
Place the strained Indigo into a large pot of water. In a separate jar, dissolve the Soda Ash in some warm water. Add the Soda Ash solution to the Indigo and stir. This increases the PH of the dyebath to prepare for “reducing” the dye and making it soluble in water.If the water appears blue,
too much oxygen has entered the dye bath and you will have to add more Color Remover into the bath and stir GENTLY to reduce the indigo. You may find it helpful to tie a line of thread to one corner of your fabric before immersing it in the dye as this will make it easy to fish your fabric out of the pot without stirring excess air into the dye bath.
After the dye has steeped. The wet, pre-washed fabric can be compressed into a ball,
lowered into the dye bath and then allowed to expand. Again, stir GENTLY. The first fabrics will only need to be immersed for a few minutes to absorb the maximum color while fabrics added later may need to stay in for 5 to 10 minutes. When the fabric is removed from the dye pot, You can also re-do the dyeing more than once – successive “dippings” and oxidizing yields deeper and deeper blues, and is the best way to get dark color.
If instead you try to get a dark blue by one but much longer and more concentrated dyebath, When the fabric is removed from the dye bath, you can hang it. After a few minutes of exposure to the air and the desired blue hue has been achieved, the excess dye can then be rinsed off. If your color has turned out unevenly you can repeat the dye process to help even out the color.
Tourist Information Center
TAT Nakhon Phanom
184/1 Suntornvijit Road.
Tambon Nai Mueang,
Amphoe Mueang,
Nakhon Phanom 48000
Tel 0 4251 3490-1
Fax 0 4251 3492