woad - and spring?

Although there was some more snow last night, the more recent pattern has been of warming weather, that joyous feeling that spring is on its way. The woad plant that was out all winter (in the black pot) has put on a spurt, whereas the greenhoused plants don't seem to have grown so much. More than this, the out-wintered woad's spurt loks suspiciously like a flower stem is on the agenda. The in-wintered plants have more bulk still though. The same pattern can be seen at Helen's, where those that had been under demijohnish covers until about a month ago have more and larger leaves, but those without cover have a definitive upward growing shape.


photos taken 1 March 2009

woad and snow

The (now second year) woad plants were covered in about four inches/100 mm of snow for a few days earlier this month, and also survived a very heavy frost (for Cornwall). The smaller of the plants has been out all winter, the larger-leafed in a plastic greenhouse since December. I found Helen (the Hort) had done the same at hers by covering a few plants. But I hesitate to leave them under cover too long in case they don't get enough daylight and sun to develop blue in the leaves, so all are now uncovered. Some seeds that didn't sprout last year may be doing so now - or the plant is dividing itself below ground and resprouting.

Photo taken 8 February 2009

second woad harvest and process

On 14 October I cut and started processing the second woad crop. Possibly I could have left it for longer but with more bad weather forecast and as the plants had grown quite quickly since the last harvest in early September, I didn't want to risk losing them altogether.

In total from Helen's and my four pot plants I cut 625 grams of leaves, which is 125 g more than at the last harvest. However, I seem to have made only 1.4 grams of woad pigment, or as I should call it to be more correct, indigotin. Last time around it was about 2 grams. I have a couple of theories for this, some related to growing and the other to processing.

This time I didn't spend an hour beating the strained liquid trying to get the foam to go yellow. I beat it for only about ten minutes with the hand-wind whisk - thinking that as blue has come up into the foam that should be enough. I since have read somewhere that it's far better to whisk for much longer, even if your arms start aching (as mine did last September), because that way you get all the potential indigotin out. So, short cuts and laziness are not worth pursuing! I will beat until my arms go blue (again) next time.

On the growing side, the middle picture here shows two groups of short leaves and one of long leaves. The left hand ones I grew here, the right two groups Helen grew. Those on the far right came from one of several well-grown plants, grown on under an improvised cloche (a large plastic demijohn with base removed). These plants had begun to take on the expected shape and density of a woad plant, although were still smaller. But 'something' in or lacking in the soil has prevented the plants from taking up/creating blue pigment in their leaves - I believe they got more direct sunshine at Helen's than the plants outside my house (though being in front of a sun-trap wall may have made a difference to mine). But my woad plants also had an additional caffeine shot... topped up with more Rainforest Alliance coffee dregs. They also had orange street-light by night.

By chance, an official Met Office rainfall recorder lives in the village - he's been recording for over 40 years now. His recent article in the local newsletter gives July and August of this year as his wettest and fourth wettest ever. With the first week of September having a further 107 mm, those two months plus week gave the village around a third of our annual average, and in the usually drier months. So it was wet. Very wet. Luckily though, the rest of September was better - some very hot days (or was that in October?). Certainly I thought the drier sunnier days would help with 'bluing' the leaves. As they did - thankfully - with keeping the slugs at bay!

So I am surprised to have ended up with less indigotin from more leaf. I have some other thoughts about the growing process to go in another post later.

frugality (blog action day - poverty)

"Frugality does not mean poverty or deprivation. It means the wise use of resources."

Paul Hawken in 'The 11th Hour'.
For full quote, see NPQ (4th from bottom).


Rather than write about poverty, the theme of this year's Blog Action Day, I thought instead I'd consider the wise use of resources as the means to avoid it. Partly I am inspired by that wonderful organisation Practical Action which devises and/or introduces very simple technologies to lift struggling communities out of dependency or poverty.

A recent mailout from Practical Action describes a fish-rice culture introduced to Bangladeshi rice farmers. A minor re-design of rice fields allows fish to also grow there. The rice thrives from the fish naturally fertilising it, consuming insect pests and circulating oxygen, giving an apparent 10% increase in yield and savings in purchased pesticide and fertiliser. As well as having fish to eat, the farmers now also grow vegetables and bananas on the dykes.

Fish-rice culture reminds me of the traditional silk production cycle – silkworms feeding on mulberry bushes, the cocoon waste following silk harvesting fed to fish in the pond, with fish waste being scraped from the pond floor annually to fertilise the mulberry bushes.

My dream is to find a similar cycle for woad production. At the moment, in theory, I can use organic chicken manure to fertilise soil (for nitrogen content). Perhaps chickens will eat post-extraction plant waste, but there isn't much of it (currently it goes in the compost bin). Perhaps as woad is such a slug-magnet there'd be mutual benefit with poultry living alongside? Whether simple or complex the cycle turns out to be, I said it was a dream and probably it will stay that way. I don't have and am unlikely to ever have enough land to grow enough woad for all my own dyeing – I will always need to buy it in.

Earlier in the year I visited Ian Howard in Norfolk, who's been at the forefront of woad revival in Britain for some years now. Since processing my comparatively meagre crop a month ago I have thought a lot about the time and effort he must put in, leading to the high cost of woad-sourced indigotin. Occasionally I've wondered whether it is really worth it... but then think back to Procion dyes and the minimal information available about its production. It means so much more to know who has grown and produced the dye and where, how, and why! To know this farmer has and is increasing specialist knowledge of the crop, knowledge that would have been garnered over generations of past woaders. To trust that he knows he needs to take care of his land in order to continue to grow it, and to maintain both quality and financial return. That must mean a wise use of resources.

Synthetic dye... dye with no entity, no place, let alone no place in nature, and virtually no history. Dye without a soul. Manufactured anonymously somewhere in the world from petrochemical from somewhere else in the world, packaged up and sold on somewhere else again. There is no trail, no depth – any dyeing from this becomes just a colour, nothing more. So how to be sure resources have been used wisely? Impossible, it seems, with Procion MX.

One is cyclical, working within nature's limits; the other based on linear production. Cyclical is frugal, implying taking only what nature can afford – some years not much, but in others a bonanza. In comparison linear can only ever lead to poverty somewhere for someone, surely?


update, midnight at end of Blog Action Day

Having spent the last hour reading other blogger entries for this day addressing poverty, I have felt moved enough to do something more (the concept of Blog Action Day works!). Instead of occasional donations I am setting up a regular payment to Practical Action. Their donation page says the following:

Please do something special today. Offer the hand of friendship to poor communities by making a regular donation by Direct Debit. Be part of the solutions that will change the lives of people in poor communities day after day, year after year.

For over 40 years Practical Action has been investing in simple and extremely effective technologies that give determined people the power to change their lives. Our experience tells us that you can’t solve poverty by giving handouts – instead we work together with people in their homes and communities, listening and learning from them. We work at the heart of desperate communities across the world, helping people to find simple, sustainable solutions to problems they face.

- We don’t believe in imposing quick fixes. So we make sure that all our projects are sustainable, use local materials and are organised and run by local people
- We overcome poverty across the world using practical, tangible and often innovative solutions. We use simple technologies and share our knowledge widely.
- We make sure that the money that funds our work goes directly to our offices in that country rather than the government, so you can be sure the money goes only to the people who need it.

quality not quantity

I woke up yesterday morning thinking about my two grams of extracted woad pigment... of the amount of work involved in its production. And, even allowing for the cool wet summer's affect on growth, how disproportionate is the effort to the result.

Later I read this article about Cornish vineyard Camel Valley Wines. The weather knocked out nearly 80% of their grapes but also created circumstances for those remaining being ideal for their sparkling wine 'Cornwall'. So if 'Cornwall' can compete with Champagne (as the vineyard owners believe), then I shouldn't be at all despondent about my measly woad pigment result...

Quality it is then. Not quantity.

. . .

While writing this I've been wondering whether there's a connection between grapes getting extra fizz from the particular circumstances of this year's summer, and the exuberance of foam I got during woad processing, also experienced this year for the first time by Helen Melvin (in North Wales) (see previous post and comments). Is it an omen of the champagne of blues to come?

getting blue!

On the tray is all the woad cut at Helen's on September 4th, about 450g. Several plants had grown better than mine, that is, they had bulked out though were still not as fully grown as expected. Others were middling, like mine, with a few well and truly eaten! But only three caterpillars emerged during the wash!

The four pots from my front garden yielded a further 50g, so in all I had about half a kilo. About half I'd been hoping for – but quite acceptable considering August's lousy weather. The left hand pile is good wholesome leaves, the top those that were fairly battered, bruised, part-eaten and part-rotting (bad bits later cut out). Can't quite remember what the right hand pile is – possibly small and slightly battered leaves.

While washing my leaves I felt they were more blue-green than Helen's, so compared them. One-all I think, if mine are bluer but hers grew better. I'll come back to the growing stuff later.

Half a kilo of chopped leaves - including stalks. I reckon stalks must contain some indigo too, and having so few leaves/weight I couldn't afford to be discriminatory.

Whisking time is telling time... when the alchemy works or doesn't. In my case I was leaping with joy to see so much blue pigment (indigotin) in the foam, and appearing so quickly! I was expecting the foam to turn 'back to green' within 10-20 minutes of whisking, but all I was getting was more and more foam, and blue. The bucket was less than two-thirds full of liquid - top third all foam! I tried scooping it off and re-whisking, I tried mixing the foam back into the liquid, I tried giving it a break for some minutes. But still foam came up good and blue. In the back of my mind was a vague memory from one or more of the various indigo workshops I've been on, where a similar stage in vat-making required stirring to introduce oxygen - and being told soon after that it had worked and I could stop stirring. And so an hour later I convinced myself that I surely had whisked enough, there certainly was blue there (and everywhere!), and I could move on to the next stage - bottling. The memory of stirring at an indigo workshop remains vague and, in the light of day (I stopped whisking around 1 am!), not making sense. Either I was confusing the process with another, or we were processing woad (or other) leaves to make indigotin without me realising. Anyway, whatever it was, it helped me at that time - I had started to think about what I was doing, the process that was happening, instead of just following instructions!

This yellowy-green is the colour of the liquid going into the jars.

Total of seventeen jars. At this stage I deviated from the instructions, which called for periods of settling and siphoning off of the top liquid, followed by a consolidation of all bottom liquids into one container, with the top liquid being diluted with water and siphoned. Each time I pulled off the top liquid it was greenish, making me suspect there was 'blue' in there too. I saved all siphoned liquid, letting that too settle before re-siphoning. In all, I had three separate siphoning stages. After a few days of settling, some jars were showing a central body of amber liquid, surrounded by greener tinted liquid and a strong blue bottom layer (see previous post). It demonstrated to me that my earlier instinct was right, that the top greenish liquid had contained some blue pigment, and a longer settling time was all that was needed.

All liquid from the last siphoning went into the bucket, and a few days later when its top liquid was siphoned off it revealed yet another bottom layer of blue!

Although it obviously wasn't traditional to use filter papers, I did think it was perhaps the modern take on a traditional filtering technique - and had read it would yield more indigotin. I also thought it might yield more if I didn't repeatedly 'water down and re-siphon' the liquid, as early on the top liquid had proved to also contain blue pigment. So I started filtering undiluted liquid - some greener, some bluer. My instinct paid off again - see how golden it came out (in a beer glass from a Bodmin Beer Festival, and looks good enough to drink!).

Filtering started at a rate of about two drops a second. By the end it was one drop a minute, which is why by then four filters were on the go! But slowness wasn't the imminent problem. Soon after starting the filtering, I was wondering how to get the pigment off the paper at the end. The more I thought about it the more I wished I hadn't started down this route. Perhaps an upside is that it made me concentrate on related chemical processes to look for a solution. There may be one but far too long-winded to take seriously, though I might check it out sometime.

Two dried filter papers with skims of pigment over some, and a crust in parts. The crust cracked up like dried mud. If it had been thicker it might have picked off cleanly, but for me it took some paper fibres with it. The very thin layers I scored lightly with a scalpel before brushing the fine powder away. But some paper fibres went too. Pigment and fibres weighed in at two grams.

Four filter papers, as much pigment as possible removed. Took about a day. Now, had I followed instructions to consolidate the bottom liquid more and dilute it down with water, this end result might have been different. Probably I'd have had just one filter paper, so the pigment on it would have been thicker and more easily removable. Possibly it would have not seeped so far into the paper had the pigment been suspended in water instead of the remnant alkaline solution. Possibly... probably...

One thing is for sure though: a lot of pigment remains on the paper. This macro-shot shows how much is wasted. Criminal considering time and effort - mine, Helen's and nature's. I won't be using filter paper again.

With thanks to Teresinha Roberts, Helen (in North Wales) Melvin, and Ian Howard for various processing instructions, guidance and encouragement; to Ian Howard, Isabella Whitworth, Vivien Prideaux, and Abi Evans for past indigo workshops which helped develop my understanding of the indigo-making process; and to Ian who supplied the seed I grew. And not forgetting members of the Natural Dyers list. Special thanks go to my good friend Helen (in North Cornwall) for patiently growing, watering and de-slugging my woad plants over the last few months.

indigo pigment settling

Not particularly beautiful jars but against the light the process can be seen of indigo pigment settling out from woad-steeped liquid. The centre top of the liquid clears to amber, while the glass edges seemingly attract pigment or somehow otherwise slow it sinking (greener colour). Temperature difference? Anyway, there's a nice pile of blue building up at the bottom - I was so excited when I saw how much!

I haven't yet finished the woad processing - I will post again when it's all finished.

straight and curly, and thin green lines

These photos were taken on August 2 (4 weeks ago) as I'd noticed a variation in the woad plants. Some plants had straight edged leaves, others were wavy. Helen (growing most of my woad) has also noticed this. I wonder if it's a genetic mutation, or a natural variation...

The plant that was bitten to the core by slugs is growing back well (leaves still small) (see bottom photo in last post), the other three have been chomped away at relentessly throughout August. There is less of them now than there was at the beginning of the month. In recent days I've been thinking caterpillars are more the cause than slugs. A Cabbage White butterfly was around and on the plants around the beginning of August, as were little yellow dots of eggs on the underside of leaves. I thought I'd got all off but no, every so often a tiny green line would show itself... a few days ago one thin green line was nearly up to full blown caterpillar size! (When very small I squeamishly have squashed them, but larger ones I take up the road to take their chances in the verge vegetation).

The August weather has been atrociously wet and cool, with a few February-like gales. Only occasionally did the sun shine but it was hardly ever summer-hot. I'm sure this won't have helped the crop either - I feel it's the cause for the (former) large outer leaves to have dried up, died in parts, or yellowed. The inner newly sprouting leaves are all good and healthy. Just right for nibbling. Undoubtedly. Hmmph.

None of the woad has had (nitrogen oriented) fertiliser in its soil, though Helen's beds had before she grew the earlier potato crops and mine had a good portion of home-compost. Perhaps fertiliser would have helped the plants gain strength. I've found an organic chicken rearer who I hope to get well-rotted chicken manure from next year. And perhaps next time butterfly netting would keep off the cabbage whites... Though most of the growth problem could be caused by their late start in life. They must be sown at the right time next year!

I am gearing up for harvesting and processing the leaves in several weeks time - acquiring equipment and organising workspace. And am working on batik drawings so I have cloth ready to dye soon after.

shredded woad

Helen, who is growing most of my woad for me, emailed a bit despairedly on Monday. Slugs being the main cause, and her concern that I wouldn't have any leaves left come harvest time. I popped over that afternoon, the following photos are from that visit. These first four show various stages of shreddedness... but most plants were doing just fine.

And so... slug control: Helen has access to sawdust, I have access to coffee grounds so we are trying both. The coffee was applied just before this photo around up-till-then unprotected plants. Most successful seems to be a copper ring (top and bottom right), but only a few plants have these, and only one has broken eggshells (white). Research suggests that coffee grounds release nitrogen into the soil, an element apparently loved by woad - or rather its uptake increases eventual pigment quantity. I've also read that coffee grounds have an anaerobic effect if applied too thickly, and that it's either acidic (which can't be too good when your soil is already acidic) or breaks down to neutrality (which shouldn't matter). There is more to consider though than woadish preference - nitrogen broken down by bacteria forms nitrous oxide (N2O), a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Not being a chemist I'm really not sure of the pros and cons of using it as slug repellent and soil fertiliser, or even of growing nitrogen-loving woad itself... but I will find out! At least the coffee grounds (like the sawdust) are already waste products that would eventually decompose anyway.

Helen has created three plots for the woad. The first is in a spare part of her raised walled veggie garden - I think she said courgettes were growing there until the slugs got 'em. The next is a raised bed that last grew potatoes; and the third is part of the bank that had been covered by carpet to kill couch grass (roots were dug out before planting). All sites get loads of lovely sun... and rain, it being the Cornish summer holidays now.

And finally, four of my five potted plants. Three are teenagers now and allowed out all night but the fourth (back left, in ceramic pot) is still a kid and comes in around midnight. A few days ago I came home feeling so unwell I didn't have the energy to bring it in... and yes, the slugs took advantage. But it's still growing. The fifth plant is elsewhere with the tomatoes and aubergines, a different mini-climate, so I can see how location changes growing patterns. All of mine have had coffee grounds protection from their first venture outdoors.

waxing

The woad is growing nicely now, and it's time to get waxing to have something ready for dyeing. Here's one just finished, taken from a sketch of the Brown Willy skyline (Cornwall's highest peak) at sunset from a favourite perch, Black Rock. Because woad-dyeing will be a learning process I want to keep the first ones simple in terms of waxing - so less wax is wasted on (possible) disasters. A series of batiks of moorland peaks may not be particularly creative or ambitious but is a nice excuse to get out for some longer walks than I've been doing lately! Also, being nearly midsummer, my mind turns to our inherited stone circles and other monuments with solstice and equinox alignments. Roughtor (second highest hill) was, apparently, very important to our Iron Age forebears. So respecting their beliefs and knowledge by focusing on views of Roughtor from prominent peaks and places doesn't seem quite so shallow after all, and maybe I will learn something too.

Minimal lines will also help me get a feel for predicting balance of (should I call it 'colour' or 'tone'?) after dyeing - the impact white lines in a deep blue will have. At least I hope to get deep blue!

Also, as many of my past batiks have treated wax as though there's no tomorrow, literally swamping the cloth with it, I need to start from the opposite extreme of less is more. I do now recognise there are limitations to the amount of wax I should use per batik, as there are limitations to the amount bees can be expected to produce annually (on the one hand) and availability of paraffin wax relates directly to availability of oil stocks (on the other). And production of paraffin wax contributes to global warming, but all-about-wax is for another post another time.

A new problem hit just after I'd waxed this piece - where to store it? Up until now I've worked on just one or occasionally a few related pieces at a time - waxing, dyeing and finishing - before moving on to the next. But not now... I will need a number of pieces ready for the woad and then do the dyeing in a batch. The cloth can't be folded and put in a drawer - the wax would crack on the fold lines. It really needs to stay flat. My mind sees it hanging from one of those coat hangers with clips on but I don't have any, nor a bound-to-stay-clean and unlikely-to-get-bashed (=cracked wax) spare hanging place in the studio, or house. I'm trying to approach this sideways, hoping tangentiality will let the obvious solution slip into view.

There's another reason for waxing these pieces now. Before I start any woad dyeing I need to finish the birds batik mentioned back in January and to do that I need to get some canting practice in for very long smooth curved lines - requiring a move of the whole body in sync with the line. Like all craft skills, you have to keep practising - stop for any length of time and you get rusty. Like me. The design calls for two perfect spirals within the white circle - any imperfection would just kill the picture. So I'm nervous and need to get confident before starting.

I also mixed up some Procion dyes yesterday and am running a fastness test on them. Three of the colours were first opened about 18 months ago, theoretically past their shelf life, the fourth is about a year old. I really don't want to buy new Procions just now... but the thought of having to re-wax because the dyes didn't fix is too scary!

more woad pictures

For an agonising ten or so days only one woad seed had sprouted, but now of the five pots/ten seeds I still have here five are growing (one since thinned out). My friend Helen took in the other forty or so pots a few weeks ago to grow them on for me. They're in her greenhouse at the moment.

It's years since I've grown anything from seed and as I seemed to do OK before without too much effort, was panicking that something I'd done was wrong and I'd end the summer with no woad to dye with at all! Only a couple germinated at Helen's too and after analysing possible reasons, we decided we were being too precious with them, trying too hard, taking too much care and concern. My pots go out on the windowsill when I'm here but come inside at night, only because I worry they might be blown off! It was a mistake to start them growing inside the house - the first spent so long straining for the light that its stem is ridiculously long. I had tried to counter this by turning the pot by 180 degrees but won't again. The others are faring better by being outside from an early age, and from the pots being tilted to the light when inside. Ten days ago at Helen's I saw a good number of sprouts.

The difference in timing has surprised me and pleased me. Surprise as I assumed if conditions were right - light, warmth, moisture and whatever else makes seeds tick - all would come up within a few days. That they don't is great - they demonstrate the resilience of nature! Spreading your bets must give better chances than blowing it all on one seemingly good day. With woad's determination to do its own thing and not conform I feel confident we will have a great relationship!

images - the top one is from 20 May at 11 days old, the last from 30 May at 21 days old. It's my impression that the younger sprouts are producing new leaves faster, maybe because they weren't wasting time spurting stem, or maybe in response to climatic conditions. The point is that 21 days may be exceptional for this first sprout to be starting on its fifth pair of leaves.

woad sprout - day four

woad sprout - day three

woad sprout - day two

woad dyed samples

Two pictures of woad dyed samples from the workshop at Woad Inc last April. Following dyeing they were rinsed umpteen times in water with Ecover, with a final rinse in vinegar (as advised for indigo by Vivien Prideaux). The vinegar rinse seems to stop further dye washing off, somewhat magically to a non-chemist! They haven't yet been boiled to remove wax but being rinsed in hot as well as cold water most has already gone. When I have enough to justify boiling up the burco then they'll get boiled out.

Woad Inc's vat was already made. Alkalinity was raised to pH9 with soda crystals and Hydros added to remove oxygen. The vat was steaming away, at 55 deg C. I was concerned it was too warm and would make the wax melt. Some dye was taken out and cooled to 35 deg C in its new bowl. This was used for dyeing the four prima, in a series of dippings, as shown in the first picture.

This cotton had no initial scour: the samples went straight in the vat (after soaking in water). Each group dip lasted approximately a minute, then the samples hung to air for up to another minute. So the lightest piece had only one approx-minute dip, and the next darkest two dips etc, up to four. There seems little difference between third and fourth dips - I am putting this down to my bad approximate timings or alternatively, lax control over which piece went in or came out first. It was all rather rushed. However, the colour is nicely even and for what it was meant for, the test has worked well.

The six organic cottons plus prima (non-organic) as control had substantial scouring, based entirely on trying to make powerloom evenly absorbent. On this test I was successful, despite being over the top! I washed the cottons 'with agitation' in hot water with Ecover. Following a rinse they were left to soak in hot water again with Ecover over two nights. They then were well-rinsed individually, followed by a 10-hour soak collectively in water, powerloom soaking separately. And rinsed again before hanging to dry. Whilst most of the cottons didn't need this treatment, subjecting them to the same ordeal as powerloom was necessary for making comparisons after dyeing.

These seven text pieces, shown in the second picture, were dyed in the formally too-warm vat, which had cooled to 45 deg C, after a soak in water. They had one collective dip, for approximately 10 minutes (despite then having a timer, I managed to not set it properly, so still no accuracy over timing). Again, I was uncertain which went in first and which came out last, though I think I gave powerloom longer.

Sadly, all seven pieces have not dyed evenly, including the test prima. Ian at Woad Inc believes this is related to air (ie oxygen) somehow being introduced to the dye bath - such as clumsy insertion of cloth. This might explain why powerloom has dyed so badly in the past - if it has been unable to absorb water then air must be in the fabric instead thus introducing it to the dyebath? But it also could relate to clumsy handling in the dyebath - cloth touching other cloth. Or back to the scour... should I have used Ecover? Was the three days soak in water alone sufficient for powerloom, or something from the Ecover not quite rinsed out despite my best efforts? Was it because the samples were dipped for 10 minutes? Was it the higher temperature? Certainly there's a difference between treatment of the two primas to make one dye evenly and the other not. Of course I kick myself that I didn't dye the organics in the same vat as the prima four-dip-series. It would have rule the vat out straightaway. I welcome any suggestions those more experienced in indigo dyeing can give...

Also worth commenting on is that the intensity of colour of the 10-minute dip prima is roughly the same as the twice-dipped-for-a-minute-each-time prima. Is that temperature-related, time-related, dip number-related or scour-related?

Memories from indigo dyeing with Abi Evans (outdoors) is that cotton was dyed cooler than animal fibres. With Vivien Prideaux and Isabella Whitworth (see here and here) their vats were blanket-wrapped but otherwise room temperature (though looking back through notes I find conflicting advice). But perhaps woad-sourced indigo acts differently, does require more heat? Although chemically the same as indigo-sourced indigo there may well be other things 'human expertise' doesn't understand about it (in the way that DNA was not mappable a decade or so ago).

Well, the answer is to get my own vat set up and find out! I haven't been able to yet, due to getting work done on the house, the tax return, and sowing of woad seeds that friend Helen will be growing for me. Frustrated that I can't get on with dyeing due to 'other stuff' I also am borecd of doing sample pieces only... it's also time to start developing designs appropriate for blue-chromism.

first steps with woad

Over the winter I read everything I could find about woad, including what must be my longest ever loan from the library (nearly five months... so far): Jamieson B Hurry's 'The Woad Plant and its dye', originally published in 1930 and apparently considered the resource on woad. It covers the biology of the woad plant, its cultivation, manufacture of woad dye, mediaeval and 'modern' dye vats, woad history and economics, use in art and medicine, the word woad in language and place-names, and the bit I still have to read: "the death of a great industry".

Ian Howard of Woad-Inc has a mission to return woad to its status as a great industry. I had joined a morning workshop at Woad Barn in Norfolk to learn what I could. Ian outlined his experience of growing the plant including how he got into it in the first place (even before the Spindigo Project!), and later learned the process to make woad (indigo) pigment, and from this to dyeing with it. Woad-Inc now sells various woad/indigo-dyed clothes and soft furnishings, soaps, candles, and knitting wool as well as the pigment and woad seed. While the other participants prepared silk scarves for dyeing with shibori I snuck off with Ian to put my organic cottons through the test, plus a four-dip trial on prima to compare with that done last year in indigo. I'll post about these soon. In terms of doing-the-dyeing there doesn't seem much difference between working with a woad or indigo vat (I think) but it was definitely worth going to learn first-hand considering Ian's years of experience with all aspects of the dye. I have bought a jar of pigment and some seed and now need some equipment and, ahem, a suitable place to keep the vat. I have a cunning plan...

It was also good to have a week's holiday: the weekend was spent in Norfolk with an old student friend, and I visited friends and family on the way up and back. It's a long time since I've travelled around England, I had forgotten what a lovely place it is. Taking time, I pootled around on A roads, through towns, villages and forest parks. This way I could really appreciate changes in regional character crossing from one county into another. So much of English (Western) culture is the same but architecturally regional differences are something to be cherished.



Pictures. Top: Dyed scarves and my test pieces airing and drying outside the dyeing room at Woad Barn. Bottom: Tidal markings in mudflats at Holkham Nature Reserve, Norfolk.