In the past, every year in the blooming season, all families had a loom to weave indigo fabrics. The name "indigo" comes from the name of the plant used to dye this very characteristic color. Indigo lychee appears in many different ethnic groups such as Tay, Nung, Thai as well as many other ethnic groups in the high mountains of Northern Vietnam.
Traditional indigo fabric is made from cotton fabrics that are hand-harvested to maintain the brightness of cotton fiber, strip the cotton off dry leaves and retain the strength of the fiber.
The process of manufacturing these fabrics is equally complicated, requiring the ingenuity of weavers and dyers, and is typically done by the women of a family. They will weave fabrics from cotton, mix dyes then finally dye the fabric. To mix the dye, pick the indigo plant and soak it in a jar of water for about 3 days to a week, combine the substance with powdered lime, stir it well, decant all the water and you have plastered indigo - the remaining sticky powder at the bottom of the liquid. The method of dyeing fabric often varies between ethnic groups, but in general, the process begins with putting the fabric in a jar, and ends with continual soaking and drying for several days. Moreover, to make ones with a beautiful color that doesn’t fade easily, the fabric will have to be dyed again and again. The whole ordeal can take up to several months. When a satisfactory fabric is produced, artisans use a beeswax pen to decorate the patterns in meticulous ways.
Indigo fabric not only represents the artistic wonder of the northern ethnic region, but is also a measure of local artisans’ expertise. Unfortunately, many households no longer grow cotton. The once familiar loom has also been forgotten, and along with that, fewer and fewer households continue the tradition of traditional indigo weaving and dyeing at present.
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