Thursday, March 24, 2011

cooking up some blue



















i'm making a zinc-lime indigo vat right now, a type of vat i haven't tried since i was in school.  it's a multi-day process, including the first day which had me feeling a little out of place at chemist supply warehouse, where i found myself saying things like CaO and the very helpful man said things like Ca(OH)2. Being a natural dyer does turn you into a bit of an amateur chemist sometimes.  the vat is happly fermenting away, and the photo above is what the top of it looks like right now.  i thought it might be ready to go when i got home today, but i have to wait a little longer until this bubbly scum turns into what's called the 'flower' - basically a big mound of foamy blue.  right now i've got the foam, but it hasn't shaped itself into the flower yet. indigo is like magic, and you can't rush magic. hopefully by tomorrow, and i can get dyeing....

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