Liz Ambrose

My Name is Liz Ambrose, I am an artist, photographer, a print maker and textile designer.

I have lived in Hawaii since 1986. Born in Portland Oregon and raised all over the world, I've lived in Korea, Brazil, Haiti and Okinawa. In my travels I was always attracted to textiles and in Okinawa Japan I fell in love with Indigo and the art of Shibori.

I like to make beautiful functional art and am obsessed with Indigo.

What I make: Indigo Shibori and Leather Bags

I dye fabrics using Indigo.These bags are made of Hand Dyed Japanese Denim, American Leather and are all hand-crafted by me. I create beautiful and functional bags that are so pretty you can't wait to use them everyday for everything and so strong enough so you can. I don't like wimpy bags!

Japanese denim is hand dyed in Indigo and Hawaiian seawater, dipped into Indigo multiple times to get the deep dark blues. What this entails is washing the white fabric to remove sizing, tying or binding using Shibori techniques, dipping into the dye vat for 3-5 minutes, taking the fabric out of the dye vat for about 25 minutes so that the air oxidizes the dye and it adheres to the fabric. (When the material comes out of the dyebath it is a yellow or green color, when the oxygen hits the fabric it turns blue)

Then I redip and oxidize multiple times, the blue on blue design gets one extra dip,

I hand rinse each piece of fabric 8-10 times till almost all the excess indigo is washed out. Then the fabric is washed and softened.

The base of the bag is a hand finished leather from Horween's out of Chicago. The handles are bridle leather from Montana.

The lining is a heavy canvas featuring 3 roomy pockets that are rivet reinforced and a special snap closure is attached to the handles.

The clutches are lined with silk.

Dharma Products I use:

To pre-wash and post wash my fabric I use Synthrapol. To tie up my fabric, one of the products I use is Flat Sinew. To Dye my fabric I use: I use Pre-Reduced Indigo Crystals, Thiorea Dioxide, and Soda Ash. To soften my fabric I use: Milsoft. After dyeing I use Reduran Hand Cleaner to clean myself up.