วีดีโอ

Hi Caroline The exact quantity of water to add is not essential. Simply add enough to just cover the leaves when they are weighted down. Adding the ammonia partly depends on its strength which varies according to manufacture however as a broad rule of thumb about 5 tablespoons per 1.5 to 2kg of leaves. If you can measure the pH (which is the important bit) enough ammonia or other alkali to bring the extract to around pH10.

Thank you 🙏

I suspect Woad is on the Australian banned list as it is very invasive in hot dry climates. There are plenty of indigo bearing plants in Australia the most common are Indigofera species including native to Australia Indigofera australis. You might try looking up a guy called John Walker who grows these plants. Not sure what state he lives in though.

Hi Connie. Yes we do use ammonia as an alkali to speed up the conversion of precursor chemicals to indigo otherwise it would take a long time (and effort) to airate. The reason we use ammonia rather than lime is it does not leave any contaminating calcium carbonate in the indigo extract as lime does.

Thanks Erin, we will try and post more in the future but currently flat out doing workshops and various other stuff.

Ammonia, dog and cat piss

Isatis tinctiora Dyers woad

Hi Lyra. During the cold extraction while the leaves are soaking you can introduce textile to the bath and it will dye with indigo. Most people do not do so because it usually results in uneven coverage. It works best with wool or silk. Also the shade of blue achieved may not be as bright. Woad has a tan dye in the leaves which does not need a mordant and even though you are dyeing at a low temperature some of this dye will dye your textile because you need to leave it in the extraction bath for some time. Try some experiments and see what you can get.

No need to use mordanted fibre for indigo unless you wish to overdye with another colour to get green or other blend.