UN international year of natural fibres

The UN's International Year of Natural Fibres is launched today. Its objectives are to:

- Raise awareness and stimulate demand for natural fibres;
- Promote the efficiency and sustainability of the natural fibres industries;
- Encourage appropriate policy responses from governments to the problems faced by natural fibre industries;
- Foster an effective and enduring international partnership among the various natural fibres industries.

Lots of events around the world are planned for this year, including in Britain an International Conference in London in December (though it seems more directed to industry than artistry) and an international textile conference in Leeds in September.



Another exciting conference:

Making Futures - the crafts in the context of emerging global sustainability agendas.

Organised by Plymouth College of Art and Design (PCAD), it is taking place in September 2009 at Mount Edgcumbe House, near Saltash in Cornwall. I hope to be there!



And, because some things come in threes, the next issue of Selvedge magazine is themes around 'Frugal'. I was asked if I'd like to advertise but as well as not knowing what I'd be advertising I feel it goes against the essence of what I'm trying to do. The magazine is beautifully produced with gorgeous photography, and even the adverts are a pleasure to look at, but it has a large readership and global circulation. Being just a humble artist I want to get on with things quietly and minimally and appropriately and... frugally. Self-promotion there seems arrogant and loud and wrong, for me, in this context. But I am looking forward to seeing the next issue.

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.

cost of boiling out wax

...in an interim stage of wax removal in the Feeding the Ducks batik:

Ten litres of cold water in the Burco took 23 minutes to reach boiling stage, and the (metre square) batik was submerged for a further 22 minutes with the power intermittently on. The total 45 minutes 'boiling out wax' activity used 1.4 kwh of electricity. Translating to 0.6 kg CO2.

Starting with warm or even room temperature water would have saved a little energy, but more would have been saved if the batik hadn't needed to boil for so long. Sometimes a few minutes dip is enough to melt and remove wax but other times the wax leaves a yellowish residue that takes longer to shift. It's often only visible when the batik is wet but can affect subsequent dyeings, such as had had happened with this last dyeing.

Experience suggests this happens when wax has been 'well cooked', turning brown, and where used has lost some ability to repel water/dye. In turn, being well cooked could mean the wax is being heated too high, ie where it touches the hottest part of the bowl it's getting hotter than ideal. But if I have the pot at lower temperature then the wax isn't hot enough for fast canting work.

I removed the 'old' wax, cleaned the pot and replenished it with new wax to the same recipe (100 g batik mix, 20 g white beeswax). This time I used half quantity, ie half filling the pot and heating at setting '5'. Always before I've filled the pot to ensure a consistently heated supply of wax, but my thinking now is that if there is less wax to start with then the pot needn't be set so high to get the ideal wax temperature. The wax is both less likely to be 'cooked' on the hot part and - importantly - used up by the time replenishment is needed!

I am truly shocked to find that of the 240 g of wax heated last time round, 145 g was removed too 'well-cooked', meaning only 95 g was used for the batik. I have been very very wasteful of resources and am determined to get this amended.

Another thought I had for saving energy with boiling out wax is to insulate the Burco boiler. Followed by hesitation from the likelihood of getting the insulation both very wet and coated by molten wax spluttering over the Burco top. And from remembering the hint from Paul Mobbs that beyond a certain depth (0.2m) loft insulation becomes carbon-uneffective (production etc cost outweighing savings). But, in my loft some old futon cotton-wool sheets are stored some of which might be adapted for this purpose.

This Ducks batik has already required three or four interim boilings out, and will need two or three more before the end. I don't usually work like this, believing it goes against the nature of batik if you can't go forward with the design in one go, with only one boiling out at the end. Somehow this design got too complex. I will be glad when it's finished!

images: top - over-cooked wax; middle - new wax pellets half filling wax pot; bottom - interim stage - Feeding the Ducks batik

research on bees - a petition

Beeswax is one of my raw (and most valued) materials, and the historic resist for batik, so can I urge all UK readers to sign this petition.

Think not only of their wax and honey, both ancient traditional natural materials, but also of bees 'services' to agriculture. They fertilise up to a third of our crops - if bees seriously decline there will be disastrous repercussions for crop fertility. A beekeeping friend indicated his more experienced neighbour lost 23 out of her 40 hives last winter.

The petition is asking for
funding for research into the rapid decline of honey bee colonies

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BeeResearch/

and runs until June 11th (a week left to sign).

The following came in the original email I received (Mark: hope it's OK to quote you):

"Quick background. I'm an erstwhile beekeeper, and this year painfully aware
of the lack of honey bees around. I leave a clump of brassicas on the
allotment every year for them to feast on, but until yesterday i hadn't seen
a single one. This combines with a local newspaper article (I live in
Warwicks) that colonies in this area - in line with the national average -
are down by 30 per cent. With no reserves in the 'British' wild (even more
serious news) I hardly need reminding anybody who is making connections that
this is part of and parcel of a bigger environmental catastrophe. I do not
use that term lightly - but without honey bees - even looked at in the most
blatantly pragmatic sense of 'eco-services' provided, our daily diets are
going to be seriously narrowed in terms of the vegetables and fruit we will
no longer be eating.

It goes without saying that last year's disastrous weather is a major factor
in the bee collapse. In other words, continued anthropogenic climate change
may spell the end of the British honey bee. The request for research money
may not help that in itself, but it might remind government on the
connectedness of all things, including the small but essential ones to our
bodies and souls, we tend to forget.

Sign the petition please, if you will!
cheers, mark"


More about bees at the British Beekeepers Association, whose site pointed me to this recent Daily Mail article about the funding situation by an enlightened (on this) politician. Last Saturday's Guardian had this informative article "Last Flight of the Honeybee". And here, a link to the government's response to an earlier bee research funding petition. Read it. Need I say more...

soda ash - where from, how, and what is it really?

The early part of February was taken up with investigations into soda ash, that versatile white powder used not only with fibre reactive dyes as a "fixative" but also as a traditional and versatile household chemical. The article was published in the March 2008 Batik Guild magazine and is also available on my website. There was a lot for me to get my head around, and indeed I needed (repeated) assistance to grasp some of the chemistry. Looking back to my first delvings into soda ash last July I realise that what the article doesn't do is assess the sustainability of using the chemical - in end use in dyeing and scouring (or by inference household use) and through sourcing and manufacturing. The trouble is I'm not confident or clever enough to draw conclusions, only to take them from published research. And I don't know if there is any.

However, I have no problem 'feeling' my way... science is all very good and proper but there is nothing like trusting instinct for getting it right.

After I'd finished the article I sat back and while resting my tired brain considered my earlier thoughts on the white stuff (pre-July 2007). I hadn't really thought about it, of course, but had a vague inkling it was naturally mined something like salt, say. But without any regard for resource sustainability. So my research has left me gobsmacked!

Of the three processes - manufactured (as in UK), mined (as in eg, US and Kenya), and 'gathered' from kelp or salsola ashes (the Old Days) - I cannot say with any certainty or feeling which is the most sustainable. But I've a feeling that at quantities produced globally today, none are. In line with everything else... I feel very uncomfortable at the thought of ripping out Mother Earth's innards, as required to retrieve limestone and rock salt for manufacture (but recognise my hypocrisy as today I put 33 more litres of petrol in my car without flinching). I'm less sensitive to surface mining of trona or natron as they are naturally renewing resources, but I feel Nature is hard pushed to keep up with our consumerist demands. Burning plants would seem the most eco-friendly resource as their annual replenishment is easy to gauge and thus Nature would set the limits. But... 'society' would collapse and (new) resource wars break out if this became soda ash's only source.

I need help to get answers, obviously.

sustainability of clothing

"Clothing and textiles is a high impact product category, accounting for 5-10 per cent of all environmental impacts within the EU-25."

Says DEFRA (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). They go on to highlight environmental, social and ethical impacts of the textiles/clothing industry in the UK:

"Environmental Impacts

• 1.5 - 2 million tonnes of waste generated
• 3.1 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emitted
• 70 million tonnes of waste water generated
  

Social impacts predominately occur in developing countries:

• child labour
• poor working conditions
• low wages
• health and safety risks

Ethical Impacts

• animal welfare issues
• inequitable trade"

And not before time...

"...representatives from the fashion, clothing and textile industries along with environmental and ethical groups are meeting to look at how they can work with government to improve the sustainability of clothing throughout its life cycle."

They met on 5 September 2007 and one welcome outcome will be a sustainable clothing roadmap coordinated by Defra that "examines all stages of clothing’s life cycle (from raw materials to end of life), charts the environmental and social impacts arising at each stage, and proposes ways of limiting those impacts where most effective."


Although I don't work in fashion or clothing (or interior textiles) I will be following this research, direction and action closely. And that's not just because of the relevance of the 'raw materials' findings for my own practice but because I believe the concept of fashion is in direct conflict with sustainability. This is not to oppose change or good design for they can bring improvements, but because the fashion world thrives in a self-promoted culture of throwaway and need for new for the sake of it. The only benefits are financial for the industry.

Fashion isn't limited to clothing, of course, it exists in the art world too. And Cornwall isn't exempt - many commercial coastal town galleries show what I call tourist art. Art created for a self-created market rather than a higher purpose... All us artists have to make a living somehow of course, but I wonder where tourist art fits in with sustainability...

indigo and organic cotton 2

There were three specific trials I'd planned for on my indigo dyeing day with Isabella Whitworth: (1) a four-stage series of dips (on prima) to get an idea of how colour builds up with successive dips; (2) comparative dips with the organic cottons (and prima) either scoured first in boiling water with soda ash or by washing in hand-hot water with soda ash; and (3) dipping a large sarong size piece of prima (1.75 x 1 metre) to get an idea of required vat size and other difficulties when working large.

My earlier teachers (Abi Evans, Vivien Prideaux) had already advised that for deeper blues multiple five-minute dips with airing/re-oxygenating time in between gave greater fastness than a single longer dip. Although there seems marginal difference between individual stages the change between first and fourth is striking. Another time I'd like to test hues achievable with up to twenty dips. Quick calculation... requiring 200 individual dips! Taking over 16 hours! I had been pondering various home-made time-saving devices for multiple-piece dipping before the day at Isabella's – definitely one would have come to fruition before 20-stage testing!

The "sarong" wasn't a complete success – although the vastness of blue is gorgeous! But parts have uneven colour – aka bad dyeing! Possibly just in the third stage when I was chinwagging more than concentrating on dyeing and simply didn't open the cloth up enough. Less liquid in the vat by the third dip might also be responsible, not giving the cloth the room it needed. However, the marks are those of cloth not being exposed to dye. Strangely we both commented on brighter lighter patches showing as the cloth hung drying/airing against the light. But they seemed to disappear, perhaps as excess but unfixable excess dye ran down the cloth, obliterating the patches.

With Abi I had learned to lower cloth in to the vat in sheet fashion and similarly remove; with Vivien I'd learned to squeeze out water and lower in in clenched fist, opening the cloth up under the surface, and re-squeezing below the surface before removal. Both methods have the same intention (to prevent air getting into the vat) but the squeezed method would be difficult with waxed cloth to avoid cracking. Hence I need a vat big enough to lower "sheets" in and a high enough ceiling to allow for this – maybe standing on a ladder? Or another device to assist dipping large pieces...

The organic cotton tests were both successful and not successful. One intention was to discover whether each fabric needed boiling to remove starches and other residues from processing, or whether a wash in hot water would suffice. They were boiled for about five minutes each. Soda ash was used with both - alternative trials for another time could be to boil or wash without but testing that would come later. The ideal is to use a fabric that requires the least energy and resources input before dyeing (and waxing), though this could be a false saving if the cotton went through more unecological processes before purchase. I believe an advantage with certified organic cottons is that the processes used have been audited and theoretically are traceable. And certainly the worst offenders have been eliminated. I'll be investigating this later on.

The boiled cloths had a second dip to deepen colour. I was surprised to see the intensity of colour was nearly even over all except the voile, which is darker. They were the first dyeings of the day, and the first few cloths came out with dark almost black streaks in one corner, which haven't washed out. I assume it was indigo transferring from my gloves – I hadn't washed them since the Prideaux workshop (note to myself: haven't washed them since the Whitworth day either so do it while remembered!).

The warm-wash cloths came last, partly because they were still drying and needed to be dry before waxing on the cloth name and process. I was also nearly out of time if I was to catch the bus to Launceston, and so the cloths went in two or three at a time with less eye on the clock. No time for a second dip, they possibly also suffered from a short airing before being dumped in my bucket along with the rest of the wet work. So it isn't possible to do a fair comparison between processes. Instead I'll have to do it with dip-dyeing in Procion.

Of the warm-wash cloths the dye is very patchy on the Bishopston handloom – but I really like the effect! Probably any experienced indigoer will groan embarrassedly at my delight in accidental effect but it has something of a stonewashed look. It hasn't occurred on the boiled version but as already mentioned, the stonewash effect was most likely down to bad practice and not cotton quality (no problems dye-painting with Procion). However, close up the boiled Fabrics Ltd handloom gives a hint of stonewash effect and its warm-wash version also looks stonewashed, so perhaps there is something in it. On the other hand all the other warm-wash cottons have a degree of stonewash (even the prima), which perhaps would have been evened out by a second dyeing. Though the boiled white (but surprisingly not natural) percale also has a suggestion of stonewash. And so frustratingly, I can't really draw conclusions one way or another on washing or boiling or my dyeing ability. Except that the four dip test on prima shows no stonewash.

And then there's the boiled powerloom. Even after two dips the colour doesn't seem happy on the cloth. It's a bit greyish and uneven, not worthy even of being named stonewash. On the warm-wash version the dye is intense along (presumed) creases and blotchy in between, pretty much as already seen with handpainting Procion on cool-soak version. Powerloom needs some serious de-scouring... of what? With what?

Conclusion? Other than powerloom I think all boiled versions would dye evenly enough with further dips and more practice on my part. But I'll wait until after dip-dyeing with Procions before being too deductive.

pics show: (1) four dip comparisons; (2) boiled wash and two dip results; (3)warm-wash, single dip results; (4) handloom comparisons - left, boiled, two dip handloom; right, warm-wash, single dip with stonewash look. The odd dark spots are dew from the grass.

ashes to soda ash

Bang goes my hypothetical reed bed plans... soda ash is toxic to aquatic life! Pretty obvious really, considering its multiple uses as cleaner. According to the Fine Chem Trading's MSDS the toxicity comes from "a damaging action due to shift in pH". So all dye rinse water that contains soda ash fix must go down the mains drain for treatment and not be used for watering the garden (OK, mine isn't an aquatic garden but it does rain-a-lot in Cornwall and, well, it might eventually filter through to the village stream.) Also, here on Bodmin Moor the soil is acidic - Ansac's MSDS indicates that soda ash can react violently with strong acids with, uh oh, none other than carbon dioxide (and heat) evolving. Maybe the moor isn't acidic enough for that, but I'll stick to the mains!

Na2CO3. Sodium carbonate. It was the chemistry that got me into researching soda ash. More specifically the carbon aspect. What does happen to it – errr, it doesn't go into the atmosphere hopefully? And, well, where does soda ash come from? Is it natural-ish or entirely man-made?

Before soda ash, potash (potassium carbonate) was the alkali equivalent. It was extracted from wood fire ash with water; later soda ash was found in the ashes of certain salt marsh plants, also in kelp ashes. This is really exciting news - I could make my own soda ash, maybe with strandline kelp! Ashes from a beach barbie kelp fire!

But, as it seems with everything, more questions emerge. Would producing my own kelp-derived (soda) ashes release more carbon into the environment than the commercially produced ones? Would the amount of strandline kelp I'd need deplete this mini-marine ecosystem faster than it could be replenished? Would the amount of calorific energy I'd need to get to (probably) Crackington Haven to gather kelp and stoke a fire outweigh the oil-based energy required to bulk manufacture and ship the soda ash from factory to my house via the supplier?

I'm not going to try to answer these! Just keep in mind that soda ash can be derived from kelp ashes. As an aside, I was once told Procion dyes' chemical structure is derived from kelp's.

Anyway plant-ash derived soda ash soon couldn't keep up with C17 European demand (or plant "replacement" couldn't?), and physicists began researching artificial production. Frenchman Fresnel discovered in 1811 that carbon dioxide bubbled through brine containing ammonia created sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and from this sodium carbonate is derived. The process was commercialised in 1864 by Belgian Solvay. Using ammonia doesn't sound too pleasant but most is recovered and recycled. Carbon dioxide and water are also are recoverable and re-used. Calcium chloride, the main by-product, is sold as road salt (hold on... I thought mined rock salt provided that), and the only raw inputs are salt, limestone and some form of thermal energy.

The process involved:

CaCO3 goes to CO2 + CaO
calcium carbonate goes to carbon dioxide + calcium oxide

NaCl + CO2 + NH3 + H2O goes to NaHCO3 + NH4Cl
sodium chloride + carbon dioxide + ammonia + water goes to sodium bicarbonate plus ammonium chloride

2 NaHCO3 goes to Na2CO3 + H2O +CO2
2 sodium bicarbonate goes to sodium carbonate + water + carbon dioxide

2 NH4Cl + CaO goes to 2 NH3 + CaCl2 + H2O
2 ammonium chloride + calcium oxide goes to 2 ammonia + calcium chloride + water

The Solvay Process Wiki explains this chemistry more fully, and Solvay SA's soda ash website informs about all stages in the process. For instance, their salt is extracted from underground salt mines through solution mining; coke is used to fire the kilns that decompose mined limestone into lime and carbon dioxide; ammonia and carbon dioxide are recovered for re-use in a distillation process...

The Solvay process predominates production worldwide, except in North America where trona-derived production has replaced it - mainly because the production process is cheaper. Trona is a naturally-occurring mineral found in non-marine evaporated deposits. The US has the world's largest resource in Wyoming, with enough trona to supply the world for 1300 years. Apparently. A batik artist wouldn't use much of that but it's still a finite global resource if mined faster than replaced. The Wyoming trona was laid down 50 million years ago as a large lake in the Green River Basin evaporated.

Trona is Na3HCO3CO3.2H2O and needs a bit of work to bring it down to Na2CO3. The Solvay SA website explains the trona process well, clearly demonstrating the simpler procedure compared to the Solvay process.

I have to admit to being a bit bamboozled by all this chemistry... and what it means for me as a simple artist so am going to post this now and come back when I've dug and thought deeper.

traditional Cornish salt

Last week I went to Saltash again (to look again - and this time buy - a bike). Funny these little coincidences in life aren't they...

Of course the 'salt' in Saltash comes from, umm, its association with salt - either from salt panning or salt marshes or from a more obscure salty reason. There is a Salt Mill Creek there and the historic Salt Mill site is now a community centre (with some fine public art works).

Salt was traditionally produced in various places around the Cornish coast by a panning process similar to the Portuguese one described in my last post, though here heat from fire was needed to evaporate the water from ceramic trays (called briquetage). Seems it's not quite as sustainable as sun and wind drying, but a block of salt could be produced in a day. Thanks to Archaeology Online for this information.

It got me wondering why someone didn't resurrect traditional salt production... and then I found the Cornish Sea Salt company in St Keverne doing exactly that! I just spoke to Tony Fraser there on the phone and once they officially launch in August I will be able to test the dip-dyeing process with proper Cornish salt. What I'm most curious to discover is whether other minerals in the salt (ie not sodium chloride) will have an unintended effect on Procion dyes - possibly even a welcome one! Roll on August!

In my dithering over whether it's appropriate to use such a high quality resource for dyeing I looked a bit more into contemporary salt mining in Britain. The Salt Manufacturers Association website is really informative including on British salt history. One fact above all stands out in making me choose

The proven UK salt reserves are extensive, with an estimated 500 years capacity at current extraction rates.

Rock salt is finite. Five hundred years sounds a long time, but if we are using it up at a rate faster than it can replenish itself then it is not sustainable. With salt being used to manufacture over 14,000 products (another fact) I wonder how much is permanently lost or locked up in these products, and how much eventually returns to the earth/ocean to re-become sodium chloride. More to come...

more about salt

Found this informative site about traditional salt pans in the Algarve (and west coast of France) - Flor de Sal. Interesting pages include a description of the traditional harvesting process, differences between Flor de Sal, traditional and commercial sea salt, and rock salt (also a good description of all you could want to know about sea salt), and a table giving similar differences between the various salt pan types. Here is some stuff about the history of salt and a pic of salt pans.

And here is a quick overview if you don't want to trawl through those: salt is the next most used raw material after oil; in earlier days it was the cause of wars between nations (consider Gandhi's peaceful demonstration against the British-imposed salt tax) and was so tradeable and highly regarded that some people were paid in salt. The word salary originates from the Latin salarium meaning 'payment in salt'. Traditional harvesting methods date back to at least the Roman Empire and may have been introduced to the Atlantic coast by Phoenicians. By the year 1000 the Portuguese were trading salt over most of western Europe.

Pans, or holes in the ground, hold and allow sea water to evaporate, with the remaining minerals gradually crystallising when certain densities of mineral to water are met. Calcium carbonate is first, followed by sodium chloride (89% of the mineral content in sea salt). Other trace minerals include sulphate, magnesium, bicarbonate and potassium though there is such a long list that you might assume it was contaminated! After a few weeks the pan is dense enough with salt and it is raked out into piles to sun and wind dry.

In commercial panning the evaporation area is larger so by the time the water reaches the crystallisation areas it is already crystallising into sodium chloride and is mechanically harvested before magnesium salts crystallise. Remnant water is then removed and the next sea water received. It is a process to maximise efficient sodium chloride production for industrial purposes. Oh, road de-icing is the world's biggest use of salt.

Rock mining extracts sodium chloride from areas that formed in a way similar to the panning process - this salt originated from sea water too.

Flor de Sal is an intermediate process in traditional harvesting whereby the salt piles are delved through daily by hand to find largish salt crystals forming on the surface. Workers took it for their own home consumption and it is still considered the cream of the crop, having the highest trace element composition.

So now that I'm a bit more informed... I feel even the traditionally harvested salt is far too good to be used for dyeing! It's too healthy by being too mineral laden! But when I see how much they rake up - every few weeks - what I take seems to be so minimal as to be of little consequence. And when I think about the alternatives - commercially driven salt panning or mining - then I come back full circle to traditionally harvested. What I should find out is whether they have a lower grade salt product in the way that Flor de Sal is the highest. And now I know the mineral composition of this sea salt (and of the mini-market salt "salt, anti-caking agents (magnesium carbonate, sodium hexacyanoferrate)"), I can endeavour to find out what happens to them after dyeing and going down the drain. For another day.

traditionally harvested sea salt

Down on the kitchen table I found organic Atlantic Sea Salt from Geo Organics. On the back it states it was produced in Portugal and:

The Environment
This salt is raked by hand from coastal sea pans. This harvesting does not involve the use of any vehicles for extraction and therefore minimises the cost to the environment. The sustainability of this resource has been managed for hundred of years and continues to be harvested without the depletion of this natural asset.

Just as well dip-dyeing with Procions never made the big time in Portugal then!

Geo Organics is a brand name of Venture Foods, whose website indicates 250 grams of boxed salt costs 99p (about six times more than the anonymous mini-market salt, but a reasonable price I think. The other one was cheap). It can be bought mail order though due to weight ordering it through the local health food shop might be more practical as well as cheaper - by courier a special journey would be made to my house whereas it might be included in an existing delivery to the local shop. Also buying locally keeps dosh in the local economy.

Their mail order website indicates the salt doesn't have recognised fair trade status or how the salt is imported. Would be nice to know and to find one a bit closer to home .

I also wonder what happens chemically to the salt during dyeing, and whether it is "retrievable" and eventually makes its way back to the sea... that closing of the loop might make its use sustainable, so long as it wasn't being used faster than it can be naturally replaced.

A separate consideration for a future post is the different footprints of recycling cardboard boxes and plastic containers (including this one without a plastics code!).

take me to the river, drop me in the water...

I read the water meter today. Usually it's the water company owing me money... but this time I was feeling apprehensive: over the last few months I have been dip-dyeing...

It was for a long-standing commission which requires a flat evenly-coloured background. The colour is something like the colour of saffron, cardboard or wet sand. Achieving an even colour over a large area by painting dyes on is not easy, but is - or should be - a doddle by dip-dyeing. I've dip-dyed the odd piece of clothing in the past, but nothing where the colour and even-ness was as paramount as now. So I had some learning to do.

To get the exact right colour took over ten attempts... boy was this a learning curve! My initial problem was in getting the right dye dilution to achieve the right tone. I mixed my own exactly-right wet sand colour from the Procion primaries (cyan, magenta, yellow, black as I call them, though didn't use cyan this time) and diluted this down, initially 3 or 4 times, later 8 times, with water. The first few dyeings came out gorgeous deep reds - stunning colours though, I love them and they will not be wasted! Try as I did I just couldn't get the final dip-dyed colour to resemble the initial one I mixed. They were new dyes, freshly mixed, so that wasn't the problem. It seemed that the reddish or magenta "pigment" (do dyes have pigments?) fixed more readily, strongly and quickly than whatever was left - Ian Bowers at Fibrecrafts later confirmed this with a technical explanation, including a fascinating account of how exactly the dyes go about (literally!) their chemical process of binding to the fibre.

Suddenly I understood why pre-mixed Procion colours are there on the market... if your initial colour isn't going to relate to your end colour, then how can you mix the initial colour that will? Ian's suggestion was to dye twice, first green then orange (my wet sand came from mixing a yellow-black green into a yellow-magenta orange), though I dyed the orange first. He also floated buying a pre-mixed Fibrecrafts colour though this easy way out was stalled by their range not having a wet sand colour - and besides, I wasn't yet defeated! But I did buy an orange in the hope of overcoming the reddening problem. Although the legwork had doubled, overdyeing the green instead of pre-mixing it into orange did the trick and after a few more attempts sussing quantities, I got... wet sand!

Experience is without doubt the best way to learn, and had I achieved what I had wanted on the first attempt I would have learned nothing. I'm grateful to Noel Dyrenforth, Rosi Robinson and Fibrecrafts for publishing dip-dyeing recipes (the first two in books, the latter on their website) that initially guided me. The method, quantities and proportions are now in my head and moving into my instinct (from where I prefer to work).

Quantities brings me back to water. Yes, dip-dyeing uses tankfuls! After the first few dyeings I felt I should start measuring the litres but didn't - it wasn't the right time to shift focus. But I will have a think and post that suss later.

Dipping also requires a lot of salt. More easily calculable, I went through six or seven 750 gram containers. The packaging gives no information at all about the salt's origin or method of production. Although I bought these from the local mini-market (walking distance) I will start looking out for salt packs listing origin and production so I can research and get properly informed before needing any more.

I do know where my water comes from - and I don't mean the taps! Five Lanes' water comes via a small works beside Withey Brook, a moorland stream on the far side of East Moor. Rushyford Water, one of my Bodmin Moor river batiks, flows into the Withey. I like it that I can walk across the moor to see and appreciate the source of my water. I had never realised before living near the "supply" how anonymous my water was.

How come South West Water usually owes me? We agreed some time back that I use about 7 or 8 cubic metres/quarter and pay £14 monthly. But 3 x £14 comes to more than the cost of 7 or 8 cubic metres, but they won't take less than £14/month. I did give myself a pat on the back for assumed resourcefulness... until I read that my water footprint is still way above the global average. I will write more about this later too.

South West Water are sending a new bill... yes, this time I owe them.