Indigo-go or Stand Back, I'm Doing Science!

The first class I took at Kid 'N Ewe was dyeing with indigo. I had no idea that it would appeal to my love of chemistry. This post is a bit heavy on the science, so if you are truly science averse you should move along, for those willing to stick it out I promise pretty pictures along the way.

The major issue with indigo dyeing is that indigo is not water soluble. So you have to mess with it’s chemistry in order to use it. First you take the indigo powder and suspend it in warm water. This is referred to as indigo paste, but, while I understand it’s a defined term so there’s no reason to argue with it*, I think it’s too liquidy to call a paste. Then you take some hot water and add an alkali and a reducing agent** to the mix to create “indigo white.”

Do not boil indigo!

That's Christine from spinning straw into gold, teaching us not to boil indigo. The temperature needs to be hot but not boiling (around 120 degrees Fahrenheit, do not exceed 140) for the reaction to be happy. After allowing time to pass for the reaction to take place, you end up with something that looks like this:

Green/brown? I thought indigo was blue.

The stuff on the top is called “the flower” which is essentially unreduced indigo. (This is where I get to say one of my favorite chemistry jokes: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate. I didn’t make it up; I wish I had.) If we were going to be very careful about what we were doing we’d scoop the flower off so that the unreduced indigo doesn’t cause crocking.***

We tried both organic and chemical dyeing. The reducer for the chemical was hydrosulfite, the alkali was lye; in the organic vat the reducer was fructose and the alkali was pickling lime. I love the idea of using organic sources (knowing how to do something in a post-apocalyptic world/learning how something was done pre-industrial age is fun), but you can get predictable results if you know exactly what you have in a solution.

In order from left to right: organic made the day before, organic that day, chemical the day before, chemical that day.

 As you can see the indigo "white" can range in color from green to amber. Pour your solution of indigo white into a vat that’s been prepped with a bit of the alkali and reducer. We decided to use the organic one Christine had made the day before, and the chemical we made in class.

Not pond water.

I know it is green; I swear it dyes things blue. Let it sit for fifteen minutes to four hours. There seems to be a lot of waiting for stuff to react in indigo dyeing. If you are in a hurry, although I’ve not tried them yet, I think Kool-Aid or acid dyes are probably going to be your best bet.

Then you put on your dish washing gloves, or borrow them off someone else if you didn't bring your own, and dunk whatever it is you are going to be dyeing. If you are using the organic vat you want to hold it above the bottom of the vat (there’s icky stuff at the bottom) but completely in the solution so that the dye permeates equally.  In the chemical vat you can drop your item off and have a cupa, as long as your cupa takes less than two minutes. The vat is rather alkali and if you left it in there for long it would end up destroyed.

When you take your dyed thing out, it’s kind of an ugly green color. As you open it up and expose it to the air you can watch the blue spread across as the extra hydrogen atoms in the indigo white react with the oxygen in the air returning it to indigo. It's really cool to watch.

Hang your items to try for 10 to 15 minutes then repeat the dunking until you attain the blue you are looking for, or until class is over. You must dunk your items at least twice in order for it to be chemically stable.

The lighter ones were dyed with the organic dye.

 We attempted to dye silk and wool fibers and found that the silk takes dye like fish takes water, while wool is not a fan.

They were all dunked once, but look at the range of colors.

You have to be sure that your vats aren’t too alkali (you are looking for a PH of 8 to 10) or you’ll end up stripping the dye as you are adding it. Kind of like when you try to add a second coat to your nails while the first coat of nail polish is still wet.

We put our finished pieces in plastic baggies full of water for transport. Once I got to my sister’s place, I poured some white vinegar in to neutralize the base and then hung it to dry.

Pretty!

 I was planning on giving this scarf away at Christmas, but I’m having a hard time giving it up. I think this class was the one I most enjoyed, but I’m probably not going to set up an indigo vat at home. Well, not yet.


*I dislike terms that are misleading. Atom means “cannot be broken” so how do you have sub-atomic partials? I know atom is now the word used for “the smallest particle of something that is still that thing.” But if you are going to use that explanation then what is the difference between a molecule and an atom? The molecule of indigo is the smallest part of indigo that is still indigo. I think they just got all excited and named things atoms too quickly. Okay, rant on poor naming conventions over.

**Reducer in organic chemistry means something adds hydrogen atoms to a molecule. In the case of indigo two hydrogen atoms are added to make indigo white. See above rant.

***Crocking is where the color rubs off of something dyed. The way to fix crocking for indigo is to place the item in a water bath with a little bit of alkali and a little bit of reducer mixed in. That way the unreduced indigo gets reduced and attaches itself.

Kid N Ewe tips.

As promised I took a whole bunch of pictures this past weekend at Kid N Ewe. Lots. So, while I’m going through them and organizing my thoughts, here’s a little list of things I learned at my first Kid N Ewe:

1. Make sure you know how many buildings there are in the festival. I felt rather silly when, after walking around one large room for three quarters of an hour, someone pointed out there were two other buildings to check out.
 

2. Bring cash. It’s not immediately apparent that you need cash. Most venders take plastic – there’s an iPhone app that allows them to swipe and send you a text receipt. (I love the world we live in.) But if you want to EAT anything, you need cash. I was booked from noon to 6, without a block of time to run to an ATM, so I was fairly loopy by the end of the first day.
 

3. If you are doing any dying, you need to bring the right supplies. Full dish gloves, the latex ones are too short, and gallon size zip top bags are a must. Also, it’s great to wear old clothes to dye in, but be sure to bring an old coat because it can get a bit chilly.
 

4. Lye itches before it burns. If you are using it (to dye or make soap) be sure to pour some vinegar on anything that itches, better safe than sorry.
 

5. Life would have been a whole lot easier, and I think I would have gotten to know more fiber folk, if I’d rented a room in Boerne rather than driving to San Antonio to stay with my sister. But I would have missed playing Killer Bunnies, watching Mean Girls, and hanging with my sister and her friends. And that would have been a shame.

Next time: A glut of photos.

Kid N Ewe. I can't wait!

I’m almost ready to go to Kid N Ewe. The classes I’m taking on Friday are Indigo Dying and Creative Soap Making. If all goes well I may be giving out handmade soap for Christmas, if not crochet it is. I'd like to take Etsy 101and I Love Color, but they are at the same time as the Indigo class and dyeing wins out.

Saturday... I'm not sure what I'm going to do. My sister is getting a group of people together to go to Wurstfest but she’s not planning on leaving San Antonio till 7pm. I could go to Kid N Ewe that morning and meet up with her in the afternoon, but there just aren’t a lot of classes I want to take. There's a Beginning Tatting class that I'm interested in, but that's pretty much it. The One Pot Rainbow Dyeing sounds great, until you read the required gear list. It includes bringing your own heat source and large enamel pans - that’s not going to happen. The other idea is hang out in San Antonio and play Killer Bunnies until it's time to go eat sausage. I guess I'll see how I'm feeling that morning.

On Sunday, I’m taking A Spinner’s Workshop. I’d rather take Spinning the Exotics, but the Exotics conflicts with the class I’m really excited about, Cotton Spinning with a Tahkli Spindle. I’ve got a bunch of cotton that I’d love to be able to spin without fighting my wheel.

I’ve signed up for the classes on Friday and Sunday, so I have a reserved spot. If I do end up going on Saturday, I’ll probably be able to pick up a class or two. Either way I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures. I may bring home some fiber, and some yarn. I know, you're shocked.

Wedding. Old and new friends. A disappearing car? Fugetaboutit.

Thursday DH took the day off so he could get to K&S’s rehearsal on time. He decided that since he had the day off, he might as well get that new car that he’s been talking about for over a year. He was late to the rehearsal, but he did have a shiny new car. I was a little cold towards the car at first, but I got over the fact that it was not the FIAT 500 by the end of the evening. We went to the BBQ rehearsal dinner at K’s family’s place and it was a laid back affair. K’s family is from New York, and the Texas drawl mixed with the Long Island accent was an uncommon blend. It worked though.

Just before we went home, I had a flash back to college. We were hanging out in the evening, trying to leave, but having too much fun. It was chilly, but not cold enough to make us go inside. The place was different, but the people, the mood, and the chill in the air were the same. And I wished that B and K&V lived in town. Hanging out with old friends and wishing they lived in town was kind of the theme of the weekend.

Friday I got off work early and hung out at S&P's with R&K and B. That night was the batchelorette party. We went out to dinner. Turns out drinks taste better out of anatomically inspired straws. Then we went to Main Event. I was reminded how much I love DDR and found out that the 3D movies, where your chair shakes when you run into something, are a lot of fun. And for a bachelorette party, what could be a better name for a mini-golf course than this:

Although, by the time we got here we could have made a double entendre out of anything.

We met up with the bachelor party and hung out till the wee hours. There may have been some celebratory drinking.

Saturday was spent recovering from the night before. We watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I was rather insistent. The group that was hanging out is no stranger to video games, so I felt they needed to see the video game, music video, romance movie. I think they dug it.

Sunday I got up wicked early to be down in Kyle by 8am to help set up for the wedding. If you want to get to know people there is nothing like preparing for a wedding. I got to know both the bride and groom's family quite a bit better than I had previously. K's family is a hoot, and S's mom is a whirling dervish of artistic energy. I loved them all. I also learned wrapping chairs with fabric is back breaking work. We were mostly done by noon, so I headed home to shower and change.

On the way back to the wedding site, DH called to say that everyone was okay, but the brand new car had been in an accident. It was t-minus an hour to the wedding and S, the groom, was stuck on the side of the road talking to a cop along with the three groomsmen and an usher. We got it sorted (car was towed to somewhere in Buda to be dealt with later, we have insurance it will be fine), and we got everyone to the wedding in time to finish the last touches.

Almost done.

It was an outside wedding, and the weather cooperated.

Fabulous Harry, I love the feathers.

The decorating inside the hall was excellent.

 

And they carried the peacock theme inside too.

 

The flowers were amazing.

I love the sparkly butterfly.

And the cake was both modern and sweet.

Also, very tasty.

But my favorite picture is one DH took.

Picture by DH

It was a beautiful wedding. And, despite the disappearing car, a fabulous weekend full of new friends and old. I wish they all lived in Austin.

Plans

This coming weekend will be spent playing with old friends, K and S's rehearsal dinner, K's bachelorette party, maybe a bit of yoga with DH, and K and S's wedding. It's going to be awesome. And I'm going to be tired. I'll get DH to take lots of pictures, but it might not be till later in the week that I'll post about it.

And then the weekend after that is Kid n' Ewe! I'm taking Friday off to learn more about dyeing yarn and fiber. Anybody wanna go with me?

This Death Star is not quite operational...

So I tried to make the Death Star pumpkin.
I started out using my usual tools and got this far:

It wasn't working as well as I wanted, so I went to Jerry's Artarama.

And bought these tools:

The funky shaped one, on top of the yellow sponge, is fabulous at scraping the inside of a pumpkin. I don't think I'm ever going back to my spoon.

It's so smooooth!

Then I continued carving away:

But it took a really long time, and I'd other things going on. So I finished up the lines and called it done.

And forgot to take a picture of it until today. That's why it looks deflated.

  

The first Death Star didn't turn out so hot, either.

Renaissance Festival

This past weekend a group of us got together and headed to the Texas Renaissance Festival. We arrived Saturday morning,  set up our tents, changed into garb, and headed in. I could go on about the mead (very tasty), and the food (so bad for you, fried and usually on-a-stick), how beautiful the weather was (until it got cold that night), but really I'm here to talk about drop spindling. And fiber, of course.

I walked around the fest with a bunch of fiber tucked into my skirt and a drop spindle in my hands. I took in the sights, talked with friends, and thoroughly enjoyed myself - all while making yarn. And fairly decent yarn at that. I had some brown Coopworth fiber that lent itself to the spindle nicely.

I haven't used my spindle much since I bought my wheel. But I think all the practice I've had spinning on the wheel has helped. I'm getting a much more consistent yarn.

 
On the way to the festival I cast on for the Southern Lights Hat using my bright blue handspun. I finished that evening at the campsite. Well, when I say finished I mean it was wearable. The ends weren't woven in, it wasn't blocked, and it was missing it's pompoms.

But it got rather chilly that night, so I was glad to have it. The hat is a bit small, so I'm going to block it bigger. If that doesn't work I'll rip back the decreases, knit another inch, and then do the decreases again. It's very quick knitting, so I don't mind, but let's see if we can block that sh*t out first.

When we were comparing notes that evening, I realized there was a stall with yarn and fiber that I'd missed. I had to go! So the next morning after breaking camp, we headed back in. And after a bit of searching, we finally found the lady with the wool. Her name is Sunni Florance, she was from Flat Rock Farm.

She also had goat milk soap, and spindles for sale.

 

There was also handspun yarn.

But, I only had eyes for the fiber.

This is what followed me home.

It's Shetland roving.

 Oh, and there was a goat. It was dressed up for Halloween.

A friend of mine bought a spindle and Sunni gave her a quick demonstration.

After that we played on the giant swings, caught the last bit of the Dead Bob show, and then it was time to head back to Austin.

On the way home we happened to go through Navasota, so of course we stopped by WC Mercantile. I may have gotten a bit more fiber.

The blue is Merino and Tussah Silk. The yellow is Superwash Merino. The green, blue and brown one is Falkland Wool.

I also picked up a new whorl.

I'm hoping this larger whorl will help when I spin silk or bamboo. I hope larger whorl will spin slow enough to prevent me from making overspun yarn when using long staple length fibers. Although, considering the bounty of wool I've recently acquired, I might not have to worry about that for a bit.

Good friends, camping, dressing up, fiber, yarn, and meat on-a-stick - sometimes the world is perfect.