Carolina Blue

Today I decided it was time to test the indigo and see how much indican is in the leaves.  A friend, Lynn Pollard helped me, thanks, Lynn!  We used the direct dye instructions in Rita Buchanan's book, A Dyer's Garden.

The plant we cut was one that had small buds on it.  We ended up with approximately 5.5 ounces of leaves.  The directions called for 8 ounces.

The leaves were put in a gallon jar and covered with warm water then placed in a water bath to heat to 160 degrees over a 2 hour period.

After a while, the water in the jar started turning an amber color.  That's a good thing!

The water in the jar started showing signs of blue.  A very good thing!!
















Toward the end of the 2 hours, the water was a dark amber tea color.

At that point it was time to strain the leaves.

After adding the liquid back to the jar, I used an immersion blender to aerate the liquid, it didn't take long for it to turn a very dark blue with those lovely blue bubbles on top.

After adding ammonia and Spectralite, it sat for another hour in order for it to reduce.

At the end of the hour it was a dark yellow/green.  At that point 2 ounces of scoured yarn was added and let sit for 15 minutes.  This is what happened!

 

A beautiful, intense blue!

I started adding small skeins of yarn, one at a time, each one sitting for 15 minutes until all the indigo was used up. 

Carolina Blue!!