For The Love of Shibori! How to Shibori Dye a Bag.

It’s Day 2 of my “For the Love of Shibori” week, and as I mentioned yesterday, this week is all about Shobori! If you missed my inspiration and shopping guide check it out here. If your not familiar with Shibori you might have compared it to tie-dye, but the art of Shibori is actual using only Indigo dye.

My first project is a easy Shibori bag. I bought a premade bag from the craft store so all I had to do was dye it. Here’s how to make it:

(This post may include affiliate links. If you buy something I receive a small commission of your purchase. Thanks for supporting A Shade of Teal! I only share products I truly love!)

Supplies Needed:

Canvas tote bag
Shibori Dye kit, the kit comes with most of the supplies.
5 gallon Bucket with Lid
Stir stick, I just used a paint stick
Drop cloth or old cardboard
Some type of clothesline or a place to hang the fabric up.

After gathering all your supplies your ready to get started. The instructions included in the dye kit are really informative, so make sure to follow them. Here’s just a quick breakdown.

Step 1: Prepare the dye in warm water in a 5 gallon bucket. You will be able to store the dye for a couple of days, but I decided to only use have the dye kit and save the other half for another day.
Step 2: Fold your fabric in the pattern you want to achieve. The directions give several examples of different patterns.
Step 3: Soak the fabric in water right before your ready to dye. Then add them to the dye bucket making sure they don’t hit the bottom. I left mine in for 4 minutes.
Step 4: Remove the fabric and set aside for about 15 minutes.
Step 5: Unwrap the fabric and rinse with clean water. Then hang everything up to dry.

I let all my pieces completely dry overnight before washing them in the washing machine with cold water. After they’re washed your ready to enjoy!

For this bag I also dipped the handles into the dye for a couple minutes to make sure they were all indigo. The bag turned out great, but next time I think I’ll add some brown leather straps to up the interest.