The Woad Factor

If you’ve never witnessed the magic of a woad (or indigo) vat, seen the alchemy of one thing turning into another, book yourself a place on a workshop now.  Forget the wow factor, the woad factor will bowl you over. The nearest thing I could think of in twenty-first century terms is the awe we felt the first time you see an iphone swipe. That wonder soon wears off. Never with woad.

We set up an informal workshop at Cordwainers Garden to experiment with our woad harvest and went through the exacting (but not difficult) process of turning a handful of leaves into a permanent dye. It took about three hours in all. We had a great turnout of people from all corners of the world.  People from Uruguay, Argentina, Spain, Leicester, and Wembley came to have a go and help us with the magic.

We collected and weighed our woad leaves then tore them up. 

The process we followed.

We poured boiling water from our storm kettle (no electricity) over the leaves.

The leaves steep for about an hour.

We squeezed (and kept) the leaves to use again.

We then added soda ash and aerated the water until the bubbles turned blue.

We then heated it to 50 degrees and left for about 20 minutes.

Preparing the material to be dyed.

After adding spectralite to remove the oxygen we carefully added our dyestuff.  The liquid is greeny yellow and the material doesn’t seem to have taken on any colour when you look at it in the water.

The magic happens as the material hits the air.

It takes on more colour.

It zings

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