Service one
Dip-Dyed Cloth Lines
This is the foundation of the yard. Fabric is lowered into an open indigo vat on a dip pole, lifted, and hung on the rail so the air can oxidise the green wet dye into a settled blue. We repeat the dip as many times as the target depth requires, and because the vat is worked by hand the cloth carries the small variations that mark a natural dye rather than a printed one.
We dye cotton, linen, hemp and blended canvas for upholstery, aprons, table linen, curtains and craft use. Lengths are supplied as bolts or as cut yardage, rolled on paper cores and wrapped so the fold does not crack. Buyers who want a consistent field can ask for a flatter dip, and buyers who want movement can ask us to work the vat a little harder.
Every cloth line is photographed on the rail before it leaves, and the photo is matched to the batch sheet so the delivered bolt can be traced back to the day it was dipped.
Service two
Indigo Homeware
Homeware takes the finished cloth off the rail and into the workroom. We cut cushion faces around the mottled patches so each cover carries a pattern of its own, then stitch runners, placemats, table squares, laundry bags, bread baskets and soft storage tubs from the same yard cloth. The living blue of the vat is the point of the line, so we avoid heavy prints that would hide it.
Each piece is pressed flat, checked for straight seams, and wrapped in unbleached paper. Homeware is made in small runs, which lets a buyer order a handful of pieces for a shop shelf or a larger set for a guest house without waiting on a long production cycle.
Because the cloth is dyed before it is cut, the colour sits in the fibre rather than on the surface, and the goods soften with washing instead of fading in patches.
Service three
Plant-Dye Sourcing
Good blue begins in the field. Our plant-dye sourcing work gathers indigo leaf, gardenia, sappanwood, tea stems and other dye plants from growers around Liuyang and the wider Changsha region, and tests every lot in a small jar bath before it is trusted with a full vat.
A leaf that is picked too early ferments sour and gives a grey blue, while a leaf held too long loses its strength, so the sourcing calendar matters as much as the recipe. We record where each lot came from, when it was gathered, and how it behaved in the test bath, and those notes stay with the batch through the season.
Buyers who care about a natural-dye story can follow a lot from the field to the vat, and we are glad to explain why a given consignment sits greener or bluer than the last.
Service four
Batch Dyeing Runs
When a buyer needs a repeat shade across a larger order, the whole run is dipped in one standing vat over the same set of days. Holding the vat still between passes keeps the depth even from the first bolt to the last, which is the difference between a matched crate and a mixed one.
We take batch runs from a single metre for sampling up to several hundred metres for a season, and we plan the calendar around the vat rather than around a shipping clock. If a run needs an extra day to reach the right depth, we take the day.
Each batch is numbered, and the number follows the cloth into the homeware workroom and onto the dispatch note, so a buyer can reorder against a real record rather than a memory.
Service five
Quality Shade Checks
Shade checking is done twice for every length. The first reading happens while the cloth is still wet and dark on the rail, when the blue is at its greenest and easiest to judge against the vat. The second reading happens once the cloth has dried and the blue has settled to its final tone, which is the colour the buyer will actually see.
If the two readings disagree beyond the tolerance agreed with the buyer, the bolt goes back into the vat rather than into the crate. A small sample from each check is stapled to the batch sheet, so a reorder months later can be held against a real piece of cloth instead of a photograph alone.
This is slow work, but it is the reason our buyers stop asking for a colour number and start asking for a vat date.
Service six
Storefront Dispatch
Storefront dispatch is how the yard meets the buyer. Folded cloth, homeware and sample cards are packed at the courtyard bench, labelled in English, and handed to the courier from the same address each working day. Orders are checked against the dispatch note before sealing, and anything that does not match is pulled and repacked on the spot.
Tracking is sent to the buyer the moment the parcel scans at the depot, and the batch number travelled with the goods so the receiver always knows which vat coloured the cloth in hand.
We keep the packing simple and solid: paper wrap inside, a rigid outer, and a sample card tucked on top so the buyer can compare the delivered shade against the card that was promised.