Long Point - Indigo dyeing

First an update on the vegetable garden. Although many people were complaining about the wet spring it was wonderful for my veggies. I have been eating kale and lettuce for over a month and have finished 2 rows of radishes (I bought the seeds on a tape this year, accidentally, but they were so perfectly spaced that I could eat every one, no thinning needed).

The purple beans are in flower

and the green ones

and the tomatoes.

When Brit and Nicola were here for a quilting class we had talked about wanting to do some dyeing with the Indigo that I bought in Maine a couple of years ago. It didn't work out for the weekend we had scheduled but we were all able to get together this weekend to give it a go.

I had only bought Indigo and Nicola was unable to find the other things to add to it, so she ended up buying a kit that included everything and we used that. We used an ice cream tub, from Stubs, as a "vat", mixed everything in there and let it rest. You have to stir it very gently as oxygen in the vat will negate the dye.

Even though it rained, sometimes heavily, off and on, all day, we kept the vat and the dyeing process outside as it was pretty messy and I didn't want a blue kitchen floor.

Inside we prepared our materials. Brit and I were dyeing wool. This is mine and the long piece is to be a dip dye.

Brit decided to model hers as accessories.

Nicola's prep took more time as she was dyeing a 100% cotton, king size, sheet set. She said that if it didn't turn out she could always quilt with it.

Then we started the dipping. I had worn a mask when adding the dry ingredients and we wore rubber gloves for the dipping.

When it first comes out of the vat it is green

and the contact with the air gradually turns it blue. The dip dye on the left has been out of the vat for about 15min while the other just came out.

Once it has turned blue you can dip it in the dye again. We dipped everything 3 times.

Next we rinsed them with water from the hose and then we took the elastics and twine off. Then washed them in mild soapy vinegar water and hung them on the line where we rinsed them off with the hose again.

Tada! Nic's fitted sheet and a pillow slip.

Tada! Brit and my wool.

The cotton, second from the right, took on a more vibrant blue than the wool did.

The sheets also used a lot of the dye, we had to make a second vat for the top sheet. Now I have half a vat left over.

We had crouched, dripped, dipped 3 times, rinsed, washed and rinsed again and the products of our endeavours were all out on the line, getting rained on periodically. We had blue feet, legs and fingernails. So we had lunch!
But we were on a dyeing roll so pulled out my Woolly Mason Jar dyes and did 2 casserole dyes and a crockpot dye. We had read that you can't use our dye (designed for protien based fabric - wool) for cotton (plant based fabric) but Nicola had some cotton yardage with her so we had to experiment.

Results of our casserole dyeing. The centre pieces are the cotton and the outside ones, the wool. The two left hand ones were in the same casserole and the two right hand ones were in the same casserole. The cotton did not pull the dye as much as the wool did and seemed to be selective about which colours it took.

We had purple dye in the crockpot. The cotton, on the right, pulled the red, leaving only the blue for the wool, on the left. Fascinating.

Tired, we retired to the beach side deck for a glass of Vinho Verde.

Brit had bought her applique project to show Nic and Rasta had to give it a test run.

Kevin, my nephew, was also visiting and he loves to cook. So he made us sea bass (done on the BBQ), scallops, fresh made salsa and grilled red peppers for fish tacos. Also charred radicchio with melted blue cheese and leek ash. I went for simple on the dessert; strawberries and whipped cream with some candied ginger on top. Dave (not being a fish or veggies fan) had a hamburger.

It was a great day.

Now I am back to making samples for my Sheep Tricks class in September.