Sunrise muddyed jeans/On mud dying in general

[Akira]

This needs to be bumped, more experimentation!

[zissou]

I've been meaning to post these photos for a while now. I documented a little project I had going this spring in which I extracted indigo from Dyer's Woad (Isatis tinctoria). Woad, as you probably know, is native to northern Asia, and even possibly central Europe. It contains indigo just like true indigo, but in lower concentrations.

Dyer's woad grows throughout much of the western US as a highly invasive weed. Its seeds last for decades and are not nutritious to wildlife. It's not uncommon to see foothills completely overrun with woad within just a few years.

How did it get there, you might ask? Well, from people growing it in their gardens to use as a source for indigo! SO, THOSE OF YOU WANTING TO GROW INDIGO PLANTS, BE SURE TO GROW THEM IN A CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT.

My project was a little bit cheater status, as I didn't go through the steps of fermenting the leaves, but I still got some interesting results:

The plant

The fresh green leaves are what you want to harvest

After about an hour of stripping leaves, I had about five gallons. This was enough for a first attempt.

Next step: chopping

The reason for chopping the leaves is so you can make a nice strong tea.

After several hours of steeping, I strained out the leaves.

Now, the trick is to get the pH of the solution up to about 9 or 10. 6.5 is too low, so...

[zissou]

...let's add some ammonia (about a cup at a time)! You really should use non-sudsing ammonia, but I couldn't find any.

10 is much better!

Now, we need to oxygenate the solution to get the indigo to precipitate out. The suds were outta control!!

Starting to appear

Next, we need to let it settle out for a while. Thank god for beer-making equipment.

Once it settles out, you really need to siphon off the tea, and add clean water. This needs to be done a few times until the solution is fairly clear.

Then I transferred the indigo sludge to some pans to dry in the sun. This took about 24 hours.

Scraping the dried indigo powder off the three pans. MMMMM...

Well, guess how much I got?

Wait for it....

[zissou]

About a tablespoon!

This should be enough to dye about two pounds of cloth. I'll probably do a couple tshirts or bandanas. I'm considering trying my hand at some shibori, which is sort of a Japanese method of tie-dying, except the fabric is stitched together. I'll keep you all posted!

[ninetynine]

Respect this man right here.

[lance]

yep, cool project Zissou

[thedoad]

awesome post.

[Bigyen]

what parts of the states are this plant commonly found?

north east?

[ah_long]

great stuff.. + rep

[NoName]

Really nice, planned that for like a year now. But because my garden is pretty small i do not think that i will have enough space to get enough leaves to dye anything.

[givemefive]

What is the dying process? What do you do with the powder?

[Christmas In A Submarine.]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to zissou again.

[zissou]

Hey, thanks, guys. It's a fun little project. I'll probably prepare the vat in a few weeks. I have some time off around Xmas, so maybe I'll do the dying then.

what parts of the states are this plant commonly found?

I know it's very common in the West and possibly Mid-west. There's really only one time of year that you can harvest it, which is when it's done growing and as it's flowering. The state does a ton of "weed pulls" to try to get rid of it, so if I ever wanted to have a larger project, it's possible. Not sure if it's really worth the trouble...

Really nice, planned that for like a year now. But because my garden is pretty small i do not think that i will have enough space to get enough leaves to dye anything.

Yeah, I probably harvested about 200 large plants to get that many leaves!

What is the dying process? What do you do with the powder?

With the powder, you have to make a 'vat' with the indigo powder, ground madder root, wheat bran, and soda ash. The vat needs to ferment for about a week before it can be used. It turns out that a colleague of mine is big into natural dyeing, including with indigo. She's going to send me her indigo vat recipe

Now, back to making my backpack...

[Sayword]

extremely interesting.

[givemefive]

Cool, I'll have to search around for the plant when I"m up in Colorado this summer. I"m pretty sure its pervasive as hell up there and I could probably get paid $25/hr to pull it by some rich home owners

[zissou]

Look for it as soon as you get there early in the summer. You can't miss the bright yellow flowers.

[ringring]

Very cool experiment Zissou.

Did you save the root to make anti-viral tea? Ban Lan Gen.

[Opie]

Can someone please just buy those Sunrise Japan indigo/mud dyed jeans?

I have stopped wearing skinny jeans so i can't chip in myself.

[albinolove]

This is definitely one of my favorite threads. Can't wait to see the results zissou. Keep that good shit up.

[zissou]

^Thanks!

ringring- I did not save it. I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to medicinal plants...

[zissou]

I have a red chambray shirt that I like, but I've always thought the chambray was a little too bright for me to 100% love it. So, I decided to do an experiment! I had a swatch of the same chambray that I left in a mug of tea overnight to see if it would tone down the red a little.

The original red chambray:

The tea-soaked swatch:

And the two together:

I'm pretty happy with the results. It toned down the red a little and gave the white weft a nice unbleached look. Looks like I'll pick up a box of Lipton, brew a big pot of tea, and let it sit for a day or so sometime this weekend.

[tfar]

While I totally see the point of an entire from scratch project and find it super entertaining, if I were to invest that much time for an uncertain outcome, as we have seen with our English friend, I'd rather buy some natural indigo extract directly and give it a swing first to see how it works and how it looks.

Here is just one source:

http://www.paradisefibers.net/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=1007

Till

[tfar]

Another link with more instructions and choice of different indigo forms:

http://www.aurorasilk.com/natural_dyes/dyes/dye_indigo.html

Till

[zissou]

^In my opinion, it's not really worth it unless you live next to an indigo plantation or a giant field of woad and have a lot of time on your hands.

[Satya]

^^

that looks cool zissou! +rep

[Quik]

After watching this thread for a while, I just ordered a pair of the sunrise japans. Pics when they get here after hemming.

I'll start rotating them with my RJBs asap, im excited.

edit: Maybe not. Gordon just emailed me saying that the site was wrong, and they dont have my size in stock andthey can either refund me or swap for another size. Im seeing if they will stretch at all, so maybe I can fit into the next size down since im between sizes anyways

[Opie]

After watching this thread for a while, I just ordered a pair of the sunrise japans. Pics when they get here after hemming.

I'll start rotating them with my RJBs asap, im excited.

edit: Maybe not. Gordon just emailed me saying that the site was wrong, and they dont have my size in stock andthey can either refund me or swap for another size. Im seeing if they will stretch at all, so maybe I can fit into the next size down since im between sizes anyways

Any updates on this?

[Quik]

THe size listing was wrong, the smaller size was too small, it ended up being a no go

[zissou]

I picked up a pair of Apolis Activism Utility Trousers around Christmas and, to make a long story short, I wound up with them in black instead of my first choice of grey. No big deal, I thought. Then I realized I'd probably never wear black pants. The trousers are well made, and a nice trim fit, so I'd prefer to actually wear them. I thought 'what the hell, let's do an experiment'.

Said pants.

My main worry was that the thread used for the stitching would be poly, but upon taking a close look, it sure seemed to be cotton. Let's give it a try...

Discharge the dye with one part bleach to five parts water. You can see the dye coming off pretty much immediately.

Within about five minutes, they had turned orange! Bleaching black is always risky because you never know what you'll wind up with.

After about ten minutes, the solution was saturated with color and the pants weren't lightening any more, so I rinsed them a few times and deactivated the bleach in a solution of one part hydrogen peroxide to ten parts water.

After drying, the color is best described as a light adobe. The color might be a bit much for me, but try wearing them in the daylight tomorrow. I'm considering doing another bleaching to lighten them even more, and then overdye them slate grey, my preferred color. I think I really lucked out, though, with everything winding up the same color. These must have been garment dyed.

[nixon]

Nice, I'm not really a fan of the new color, but if you successfully dye them gray that'll be cool.

Also, I know I posted in here over the summer I think that I was going to try persimmon dyeing some stuff. I finally feel like I have enough experience to make an informative post, so that should be coming in a couple days.