r ranson wrote:
Judith Browning wrote:I know you're not interested in using facebook but there are some interesting groups there discussing natural dyes. One is devoted to indigo vats and covers woad also...another I am learning a lot from has to do with lichens and mushroom dyeing and the third is natural dye ferments.
All three have active real time problem solving discussions and are quite helpful.....natural dye nerds!!!
Any chance you could convince some of your woad friends to pop in here?
We're on water conservation measures now, so I will probably make most of the rest of the plants into woad balls.
But I still want to make one successful vat this year.
Too much medicine in our diet for a urine vat.
Maybe something else?
You’re welcome to share anything here, there and vice versa
(I'm guessing you've already read the fibershed article)
Soda ash is most likely her problem. It takes weeks to settle. Recommend that she reads the Fibershed article I link in my announcement post.
And that she switches to lime (the short answer;)
I have tried lye, since I have that on hand and knew it did not produce the sediment. The problem I had is that it took much longer to precipitate - almost like when I used no alkali at all. Can you shed any light on this?
Lye (sodium hydroxide) is a very strong alkali and will take the pH well over 11.5 with very little lye added. I suspect that this was keeping the dissolved indigo in solution by rotting the vegetal material as a more aggressive reduction process. That would suggest, as always, manage the pH.
r ranson wrote:Thank you. This is very helpful. I'll give it one more try.
I don't have soda ash, but I did have success making blue power last year with washing soda. I'll give that a go.