My first batch of Woad sludge finally evaporated down to powder. As soon as the order of Spectralite arrives I’ll test it out.
And the new Woad coming up.
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Coaxing Blue: part 2 – got woad (powder)
Category: dye plant
Coaxing Blue: My Further Adventures with Woad
I’ve used both Indigo and Woad in powdered form but never processed my own plants. Given my limited garden space it’s unlikely I’ll be able to grow enough for all my dye needs but I still like to grow as much as I’m able and understand the process a bit better.
Woad References:
All About Woad: Extraction Page: <http://www.woad.org.uk/html/extraction.html>
Good pictures of the process.
the Yahoo Woad Growers Group: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/woadgrowers/>
Nice folks. They were helpful when I had processing/extracting questions.
Rowan’s Woad Page: <http://my.net-link.net/2E/EB/rowan/Woad%20Page/woadpage.html#Top>
Institut für Färbepflanzen: Färberwaid: <http://www.dyeplants.de/faerberwaid.html>
If you read or want to practice reading German, this would be a good site.
First year woad plant. From what I’ve read Woad is a bi-annual plant. You get the dye from the first year leaves and your seeds the second year. And, that you can’t get dye the second year. I haven’t tested this out (yet) so anyone correct me if I’m wrong.
Harvesting leaves.
New Woad plants for next year.
Chopping and then stewing or steeping the Woad.
Mixing in the Ammonia to oxygenate.
Waiting around for the particles….(in my case about 3 days). Reading directions for Woad processing it can sound like you see particles settling in 15 minutes or an hour or two. In my case it was more like 3 days to a week. I posted to the Yahoo Woad group to see if I was doing anything incorrectly and got back very helpful replies. In some cases the particle settling phase takes a bit longer.
Finally..shadow on the bottom of the jar is Woad particles I’m waiting for. (Few days more)
Pigment settling and drying.
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Summer Solstice, Woad (hopefully) and Weld
Happy Summer Solstice and all that. On the garden front the Fennel has begun blooming and I have Woad on the way or at least like to think that I do. Last year I misidentified Weld for Woad. Hopefully I’m growing what I think I’m growing this time around. The Weld did however turn out – a good clear yellow dye – and I swapped Weld for Woad seeds with another dyer I met online.
This should be a Woad plant from last years seed swap.
New Woad and Weld covered with screen to keep the local beasties out.
Weld on the way.
This is the rest of the herb garden – some Calendula, Rosemary, Yarrow poking up in the back, Lavender and Sage. Also tucked in there are Valerian, Vervain and Thyme.
And the garden supervisor.
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Vernal Equinox, Woad and Weld Started, Small Tapestries and my Flaming AMC
We passed the Vernal Equinox a week or two ago, which I think means beginning of Spring. Days are getting longer with a bit more light later into the evening. Some of the Weld and Woad that weren’t washed out of the flats in the last rain storm are nearly ready to move into the garden.
This one is neither Woad nor Weld, but one of the California Poppies blooming all around my street.
On the subject of weaving, one piece is off the loom and another one started
Lastly, an automotive postscript: My neighbors have taken to calling my AMC (aka: the-brain-that-wouldn’t-die) the “flaming amc”…
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Rain, Sun and back to Rain Again
Did I mention that the weather here is volatile and often just plain weird? Rain coming down in buckets. Windy. Tomorrow noon it may be sunny and near 70°, unlikely as that seems right now. 
Good weather to say in and weave. I’m currently working on a small piece woven with the “deconstructed” or recycled Abercrombie & Fitch sweater wool from my local Out-of-the-Closet thrift shop. Project began as a local guild challenge (earlier dye posts) and I’m still weaving through the accumulated stash.
The wool is a natural off-white. It’s been dyed with onion skins, Hibiscus flower (dried), Woad (powdered), Fennel, miscellaneous yard trash and copper or iron mordants. I don’t really have a good, reliable local blue so generally I use Woad powder or Indigo. I was trying as much as possible to use what’s locally available and go easy on the chemical mordants. 
The cats deal with the weather by alternately hibernating and demanding the door to Spring. Not a bad plan.
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my idea of a good day
My idea of a really good day is getting things done. Winter solstice has passed and we are finally getting more daytime light. This weekend I managed my usual weekend laundry, garden weeding and did a small woad vat.
[left to right: yellow #2 exhaust bath, cactus fruit, woad, woad over-dyed with fennel.]
I’ve been working on onion baths, first one for the darker color – tangerine-orange – and exhaust the remaining dye for lighter yellow. [The pinkish-orange was my previously mentioned cactus fruit attempt.
[upper left clockwise: onion with a 15 min copper after-bath, onion #1 bath, cactus fruit, onion #2 exhaust bath.]
I’ve tried 1:1 (fiber:dye stuff) but have found that 1:.5) works well too even if I have to let it sit longer. First bath simmers for an hour, sits over night and then the 2nd exhaust bath is another hour of simmering and again cooling over night.
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Nutty Craft Duty
File this entry under who-knew. As I’ve rambled on previously, one of my standard vegetable dye sources is onion skin. I keep a good stock of this handy by regularly foraging in the market onion bin – where the loose onions are piled. Produce managers who belong to Easter-egg-dyeing traditions sometimes have childhood memories of dyeing eggs with onion skin so they know what I’m doing and occasionally toss me a bag that the onions just were poured from.
For the record, I forage while I’m grocery shopping so I do actually buy stuff not just scavenge the onion bin. And this is often the same market where I harvest Fennel in the parking lot so they are used to me.
And apparently friends are also aware of this. Recently I drove one to do her marketing and while she was making selections I detoured by the onion bin. As I was picking she rolled up announcing it’s time for ‘nutty craft duty’. She proceeded to reach under a monster mountain of loose onion and whiped out handfuls of dried onion peels, tossing in some shallot peels for good measure.
Its nutty craft duty night. Call out your friends
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Thanksgiving and first Oxalis
Earlier this week I picked the first Oxalis of it’s – the Oxalis’ season. I don’t think that this really qualifies as a “season” but what I’ve observed locally is: Fennel blooms and continues more-or-less to late Spring to Fall and Oxalis blooms late in Fall and continues to Spring. (Glove on the hand because I am a total weather-wimp.)
And since I’m writing this on the (United States) Thanksgiving Day holiday, I will note that one can always be thankful for a consistant, reliable dye plant that dyes wool, cotton and probably things I haven’t tried yet. (And the bees like it too!)
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More Adventures with Woad and Weld or where have all the Dicots gone
gone to Eudicots every one…
Since I spend a lot of my so-called spare time working with or around plants – dye plants especially – I decided it was time to understand how they work. This fall I signed up for “Botany for Gardeners” at my local university extension program. (Brian Capon’s Botany for Gardeners – a very good read.)
Possible conversation starter: apparently with all the DNA sequencing there has been a shakeup up in botanical classification. The dicots (two-leaf seedling thing vs the one-leaf monocot thing) some of us grew up with (and had a couple of semesters ago) are now eudicots (new two-leaf seedling thing). Who knew.
My standard dye plants are often categorized as “weeds” so I end up babying along other people’s unwanted garden invaders, Wood Sorrel/Oxalis, Fennel, etc. Recently I’ve been nursing along (what better be) the next batch Woad and Weld.
Weld seedlings:
Woad seedlings:
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End of summer, Woad vat, cotton, corn and beans
I don’t know how official this is but most people I know consider “Labor Day” – which in the US falls on the first monday of September – as the end of summer. I ended my summer with a Woad vat. The wool is my SCHG challenge recycling/upcycling project.
Starting from the left: Woad overdye Hibiscus (yellow); Woad overdye onion peel (orange-yellow); Woad multi-dipped; Woad one dip.
I had hoped to grow my own Woad but as it turned out I was growing Weld. (Oh don’t ask, so much for my plant identification skills…)
This Woad was purchased in powder from from Woad Inc in the UK. The All About Woad site has really excellent directions and also sells Woad dye and kits.
Besides the dye plants (my project) there is the family vegetable garden. Most years we get a supply of dried tomatoes and soup beans. This year we tried growing corn. Besides what was eaten fresh and given away we have dried corn (soup, cornbread, etc.).
[dried -> ground -> corn bread]
And the first boll on my cotton shrub just started opening.
Eat corn bread, contemplate the Woad vat, not a bad ending for the summer.
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