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.

loose dye update

The Procion samples had two excursions into the washing machine. First in a pillow case then, as I felt they wouldn't have had suitable exposure to the elements, in onion etc plastic mesh bags. No apparent change in colour intensity. That was before Christmas.

After three weeks 'airing' in my studio, I dropped them into tubs of just-boiled water. Or rather the second lot went into partially cooled boiled water, as I could smell the first lots' plastic tubs rather more keenly than desired. Yes, a lot of dye came out, immediately. I agitated them often, with a hazel stick (in case it's relevant!). The amount of loose dye after an overnight soak was close to the same amount as came out after the first wash/soak. I am bewildered!

They have been rinsed three times (collectively), with plenty of agitation and kneading incorporated. The final rinse/soak water hinted pink. I didn't rinse again, but hung them to dry.

And now dry, there is still no perceivable colour loss. And so...

- If the dye was excess or loosened in the washing machine then why wasn't it all rinsed out there too?

- Has three weeks exposure to air loosened the dye? Impossible surely. But also among my first posits.

- Does Cornish water affect the dye? It's mildly acidic. Perhaps I should alkalise the water and try rinsing again?

- Why, how, can water rinse clean (or nearly clean) and then time after time after drying release more dye when re-wetted?

Procion washfastness tests update

Neither heat-blasting with an iron nor a second dose of fixing has ended the leaching of colour when soaking. But the second-fix test has clearly demonstrated that tinted soak water is nothing more than excess and unfixed/unfixable dye.

The questions remain: how to rinse it all out and should it be there in the first place?

Current cold (but lovely and sunny) weather rendering my studio at an ambient temperature of 16-17 C means it's not a great time to test the Procions at the advised temperatures. I think only that could ascertain how much excess dye can be expected from direct dye painting.

Meanwhile I'll chuck the existing samples into the washing machine next time there's a load to go on, and see if expensive technology makes a difference. Not that I'd want to do this every time, but it is what Ian Bowers of Fibrecrafts recommended a while back.

batik in a warming world

Has batik featured in Bali? There's a great story here about how delegates at the Climate Change Conference in Bali had to ditch their formal attire for batik shirts, because despite their requests it wasn't possible to turn up the air conditioning...

organic cotton - Procion dye 1

Following are observations I made last month after hand-painting Procion MX dyes on to the organic cottons.

Summary: Dye was absorbed fine on prima, white percale, and seemingly Bishopston handloom. Dye wasn't fully absorbed to the reverse side on Fabrics handloom, voile and natural percale, though it was marginal on the handloom. On powerloom it had hardly penetrated to the reverse side.

Hence powerloom requires a serious attempt at scouring. To compare results I will do equivalent tests on all other fabrics. I see two levels of scouring – boiling in water with soda ash and soaking in warm water with soda ash. The powerloom is so heavily opposed to receiving dye my inclination is to start with boiling and if that works try again with warm water. If it doesn't work... well, I'll decide then!

After boiling out I found the dyes had fixed adequately on all cloths except, as expected, the powerloom. Colour was lighter on the reverse of the natural percale and marginally so on the voile and Fabrics handloom, due to incomplete penetration of dye. It was fine on the others.

This said, on comparing the boiled-out results with unboiled test strips two things were apparent:

Firstly, the cyan was consistently not as intense as it should be, suggesting the dye is already past its shelf life (though bought only in December 2006 and not opened until early August when starting these tests). I also was aware of more cyan colour emerging into the boil-water. Remnant colour here tends to be "loose", not re-bonding with the fabric. But even with the first batch of prima and the two handlooms the cloths have taken on a bluish tint, more apparent in the handlooms than prima. An explanation could be that the boiling-water was the same water plus soda ash used for scouring the cottons for indigo dyeing, and that the loose dye has re-acted with the soda ash and cloth. Additionally I had applied fix to a further area of each test but abandoned original plans to dye it in the first stage, so there was "free" fix around from here too. But "blue tint" has happened a few times in the past - on individual cloths in plain water – so something else could be happening... but what? Or is it just down to old dye?

This "free" fix and/or (my feeling) the badly-fixed powerloom dyes might be responsible for some other unexpected dye transfer on to the voile and Bishopston handloom by getting wet and being temporarily in contact with the powerloom, which also shows signs of dye transfer.

Have I got it in for the powerloom? Am I giving it a hard time? Yes! Yes! Yes! Just as well really,if everything was working perfectly I'd feel my tests weren't adequate!

Secondly, intensity of the other three dyes is as expected after boiling out, but the unboiled test strips are so much deeper that I perhaps could look again at the recipe I created back in the early 1990s when first starting batik in this country. At that time, I ran tests that gradually increased the proportion of dye to water until the maximum intensity of colour after boiling was reached. That recipe is one level 10 ml spoonful of dye powder to 300 ml water (whether or not urea is added to the water to prolong drying time and thus intensify colour). It would be great if less powder achieved equivalent results!

More than showing the outcomes, the photo highlights the limitations of technology and superiority of human eye. In real life all dyed areas of all the cottons have similar hues and intensity (except powerloom) including voile, which only appears darker because of shadow showing through its loose weave. Certainly none are as red as the photo suggests they are.