On Sunday, May 6th, Kayli House and I hosted an Intro to Indigo and Shibori workshop at Oil and Cotton. It was only two hours long and everyone had great time.
We used a ready made kit with pre-measured ingredients. I made up the vat two days early so it would be ready by Sunday. We dyed a few more things on Monday and vat was even stronger! Indigo is pure chemistry with a pinch of magic!!
Many, many, years ago I participated in my first Indigo Vat Day. It was in Lancanster, Texas outside of The Woolenworks Yarn Shop. In addition to the powdered indigo (made from the fermented and dried leaves of persicaria tinctoria) the huge pot of water was treated with assorted white powders (urea, and soda ash for starters). We merrily dipped skein after skein of yarn. Those skeins became mittens for my kids.Years later, when they were worn out, I unraveled them and used the yarn in my first small tapestries.
The truly magical part of the chemistry of indigo is the role oxygen plays in the process. The pigment adheres to fabric ONLY in an anaerobic environment. The oxygen gas can be kept from interfering with the pigments work only in a liquid that is similar to that of fermenting plants.
Of course, it won’t be water if we remove all the oxygen- only the free molecules need to be removed. Some where in time, ages ago, someone figured out (probably several someones) that stale urine was the perfect fluid to make this happen! And, stale urine is easy to collect and store. No need to haul buckets from the river, just provide a place for folks to make the deposit. In Pompeii, I was delighted to see the sidewalk urinal trough that funneled the golden liquid into a laundry shop.
I have never attempted to use stale urine for an indigo vat (though, I do have a funny story) mainly because, thanks to modern chemistry that useful mixture can now be purchased as Powdered Urea. Just as pungent, but with out any, um, impurities.
In the last decade, I have noticed that indigo recipes no longer require Urea. Long lasting, active vats can be made with fructose and other combination. This is wonderful, not only in an olfactory sense, but also because traditional indigo vats were actually operated by bacteria that initiated the de-oxygenation of the indigo.
Check out the Maiwa site here for more information.
Oil and Cotton plans to offer the indigo workshop several times over the summer. Plus, we are hoping Sarita Westrup will find a time to offer a more in-depth indigo workshop soon!
Here are some photos from the fun day.
Such beauty June! Thank you for sharing!
My introduction to indigo was at Woolenworks after they moved to McKinney. What a wonderful place that was!