Tag Archives: woad

November 9, 2015 · 10:49 am

Workwear for a suburban guerilla gardener

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Some months ago I had an idea.  I thought I would embroider my gardening shirt, or one of them. Once I had the idea, I couldn’t let it go.

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I had my beloved’s gift of Japanese indigo dyed thread and it felt so perfect for the job…

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But when I spoke with a friend about it she gently suggested that investing so much time and effort in something on the verge of falling apart might not be wise use.  She is a wise woman and gentleness is her way.

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I began thinking of the fabrics I already had, offcuts of linen, canvas and stout cottons.  It occurred to me that I had a Merchant and Mills pattern (The Top #64) that struck me as pieced, and that called for quite stout fabrics.  I thought over a kind comment here on the blog about using more than one type of fabric as a potential feature rather than a problem (thankyou!).  I started dyeing more fabric.

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And so two sets of offcuts from different generous friends found their way into various dyepots.

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I found that I didn’t have pieces big enough for the pattern pieces anyway–even with front and back each being made up of 4 different pieces of fabric, some parts of this garment were still pieced together from smaller segments.

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And now, here it is.  Embroidered with dye plants of the neighbourhood and the names of plants I have been propagating and planting.

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And a few other phrases of note.  There may be more yet to come!  And now you know how I came by so many scraps that I needed to Make patchwork as I went…

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August 4, 2015 · 12:49 pm

Another bundle of beautification

I had another undergarment that could use improvement… here it is before.

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I liked the back better.

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E Scoparia got the job again.

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It looked so good afterward…

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While I was at the dye table I realised that the woad bundle I had left tied was still there… I unwrapped and this one had prints. Green leaves and contrasting stems.

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And here are the ‘after’ pictures… clearly the light was not as good as I thought at the time!  The front:

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And… the back.

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I’m not sure.  I might go again!

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May 25, 2015 · 9:38 am

Woad!

I know, I’m easily excited, and I shouldn’t shout at people who are kind enough to read this blog, but WOAD!  I hang about on a couple of natural dyeing boards on Ravelry and I think it was there I saw a link to this resource about dyeing with woad–entirely graspable (apart from the absence of a reducing agent).  And in metric, always a plus. A couple of other Australians were chatting on Ravelry about when to use your woad–and that had me thinking now was the time to do it.  So.  Here are my two plants (before).

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There has had to be some explanation about this not being a salad green, which ought to be a clue about the  variety of salad greens we grow here.

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I had a lucky find behind the woad… the last of the cherry tomatoes.

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There was more woad than I thought.  And for anyone who has been wondering, I now know where the snails live and prefer to breed. Which confirms my opinion that the trouble I have had growing woad from seed might be due to its being utterly delectable to snails and slugs and every passing nibbler.

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This is the harvest!  For anyone else who has been wondering why some of the silverbeet hasn’t been thriving, another duh!  Moment in the vegie patch.  Those are white beetroot.  I don’t remember planting them, but more than happy to eat them in any case…

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Chopped woad leaves.  Three litres of chopped woad leaves.  A lot of care was taken to ensure no snail was wounded at this stage.

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Into the boiling water.

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Straining through four layers of cloth.

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Measuring the hot liquid (about 2 3/4litres)–and a pinky-browny colour.

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The first few locks of wool went in and ten minutes later–that isn’t blue?!

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After a second quantity of wool which also came out mauve, another batch came out still silver-white.  I decided to try a smidge more ammonia, and out came some pale blue.

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I can’t say this is earth shaking colour, but it is colour, and it is a colour I don’t usually get from the garden, and it isn’t as crushing as the total incompetence and series of accidents I’ve had going with austral indigo.  It’s enough of a success to make me think I should try again.  Let it be said that having a much larger quantity of leaves has to be an asset, because while woad reputedly has a low yield of indigo, so does austral indigo and its leaves are much smaller.  The austral indigo drops a lot of laves at this time of year and… I think I will just let it be this year!

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November 18, 2014 · 4:42 pm

Additions to the dye garden

It’s a mighty busy time of year in my day job, which is why it has been quiet here at the blog.  That, and a series of lovely house guests.  Those present in the flesh trump the online world on an average evening at our place!  However, life has been busy at home too.  Propagating and planting is going all out so long as the serious heat holds off.  I even have a few Japanese Indigo seedlings, though this morning some of them had been chewed in the night.  There is a period in summer here where planting anything seems merely unkind and doomed to failure, but we’re not there yet.  I have been germinating and planting out, and there has been guerilla gardening too… but I digress.

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A few weeks ago, I had some surprise purchases at the annual Herb Society fair.  I cycled up there with friends who had brought a picnic and we came home laden with plants and seeds… it was a lovely day.  I have been to the fair many times looking for dye plants and failing to find them.  One year I succeeded in buying madder, which was very exciting.  This year, though, I bought woad!  Who knows what will come of it, but I have two plants and they are thriving in the vegie beds so far.  I had managed to buy seed but have never grown even one seedling.

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Then there was weld!  I decided to bring it home in spite of all the other sources of vegetable yellow.  we’ll see where that leads, too.  And finally, this rather spectacular form of sorrel.  Nothing to do with dye that I know of, but it does promise some pleasurable and spectacular summer eating…

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