Turquoise with fresh indigo

Several years ago I was an accidental but willing participant in a fresh indigo experiment at the Projecto Anil in San Salvador. One aspect of the experiment was to quantify the difference in strength between Indigofera guatemalensis and I. suffruticosa. (The guatemalensis turned out much stronger.) I showed up in time to strip leaves from the plants; the studies were all done on silk with the juice of fresh ground up indigo leaves. The silk dyed turquoise! Later the same year I had the great good fortune to take a fresh indigo workshop with Rowland Ricketts III while he was artist in residence at Arrowmont. He grew some Polygonum tinctoria, also known as Japanese indigo, and we used the fresh leaves.


So finally, this year I got seeds in time to plant, and had a decent enough crop to do some experimentation of my own. I ordered some habotai silk hankies from Dharma Trading and invited some friends over. In 2 sessions, different days, different friends, we got some interesting results on silk and wool.


This technique is SO accessible--anybody whose mother will allow them to use a blender can do it!
1. Grow indigo. I got my seeds from J.L. Hudson.
2. About mid-July, harvest the plants & strip the leaves from the stalks
3. Optional--weigh the leaves & your fiber.
4. Put the leaves in a blender with cold water. Blend on high for a minute or so.
5. Strain the juice into a bowl
6. Put your silk into the bowl for 3 minutes for turquoise (wool may take longer). If you want green, leave it in overnight.
7. Remove your fiber, rinse, dry.
8. The juice & pulp can go in the compost
9. Clean up, & you're done!

Gradation study--we started out with the assumption that we'd need a 4:1 ratio of leaves to fiber. This is based on reading Dorothy Miller's book and Buchanan's Weaver's Garden. 48 grams of leaves were put in a blender with about 4 cups of water, then the juice was strained into a bowl. The silk hankies were put in one at a time for 3 minutes each. We did 8 hankies, 3 grams each. The 4:1 ratio is a great starting point--I wouldn't go lower, though.


I'd frozen some leaves--they gave a very pale green.


I left a hankie in overnight and got a light mossy green.


Photo: Gradation in the middle, frozen leaf samples on the bottom, overnight sample on the top.
Stay tuned for the wool samples, staying in the bath 1, 2 and 3 days.

Meanwhile, sign up for my "Perennial Indigo Vat" at SAFF, http://www.saffsite.org/ where you can see the samples in real life. It will be the morning of Saturday, Oct.24. Sorry, that's too late for a fresh indigo class--the second harvest will have come & gone. This class covers how to make and maintain an indigo vat that you can hand down to your children & grandchildren. The vat is perennial, not the indigo...

Posted by Eileen Hallman