feeding the indigo vat

when Ma left us to go on her next big adventure, among the stuff she left behind was a modest esky (across the ditch you'd know that as a chilly bin, across the puddle it might be a cooler, and I've never encountered one in Old Blighty so I've no idea what you might call it there)

it's a well-insulated device made of plastic. Ma used hers for fish bait, possibly also for gin.

the extendable handle is a bit rusty (and cannot be removed for restoration by boiling in a eucalyptus bath) but inside it was squeaky clean. as I pondered it, I had an idea.

 

it's very cold here in winter. we don't get snow very often but it's pretty nippy. I decided to liberate the esky and give it new life as an indigo vat. the insulation helps keep the temperature up and it's quite easy to rewarm it when it does cool down (three days of neglect and it's down to lukewarm) by standing one or two old wines bottle full of hot water in it. (hot stones are good, too, but more difficult to handle.)

and while my favourite indigo vat is made with bananas, they're rather pricey right now (usually cheaper in school holidays, as less lunches are being packed!) and so I am nourishing the vat with other substances. I'm a bear who likes to make the most of local resources, so (thanks to a conversation I had with Charlotte Kwon a few months ago, when she said the vat would probably be just as happy eating compost) I've been experimenting by boiling up the vegetable trimmings and feeding the liquor to the vat.

the chickens are delighted because they're getting cooked scraps :: much easier to eat!

celery and sweet potato

beetroot and pineapple peels

pouring in the brew (better to hold it closer to the surface and thus introduce less air, but trickier to photograph if you happen to be doing it all yourself)

the main thing is to keep it warm, check the pH and, as Michel Garcia so charmingly says, remember to feed the donkey before you put it to bed.

what are you feeding yours? I'd be interested to know.

blue notes and life lessons

life lessons. 

learn to expect the unexpected. 

you'd think that by now i would have that firmly tattooed inside my left eyelid. 

I have to confess I was humbled by the indigo vat last week...which for the first time since 1991 (the year I first dabbled in the blues) decided to behave like a bit of princess and consequently was a little slow to reveal the magic. 

pale blue instead of brilliant blue.

With the wisdom of hindsight I should have put the freshly prepared vat to bed overnight wrapped in quilts and blankets but foolishly (possibly thinking hey, it's summer) left it out under the stars overnight. 

An extra 24 hours and a bit more warmth yielded truly lovely results, sadly too late for my forgiving students (and me) who had already dispersed with the four winds - but very happily for Judy (see blue hand below). It certainly reinforced the rules of indigo, which likes to be warm and wellfed, just like the rest of us. Didn't do a great deal for my self-esteem, but I'm sure the Dogs Above had their reasons. I sure hope they did. The inner bear took a bit of a pummelling.

At least all present were very happy with their metalwork (guided by Roz Hawker), received the magic of string (learned originally from Nalda Searles), loved the fabulous food (thank you Chloe Keylock), revelled in the gorgeous surroundings (thank you Michael and Judy Keylock) and enjoyed the dog therapy provided by the ever joyful Molly.

photo by Michael Keylock

I'm taking my lesson in the spirit of the wisdom below 

(thank you Michael for bringing it to my attention)

and have come home to more wise words from another Michael 

(image borrowed from the Michael Leunig appreciation page)

the teapot of constancy is filled with Lady Grey tea, 

the dog of sanity (who slept on my bed last night) is by my side. 

Admittedly the armchair of philosophy needs serious re-upholstering and the rug of constancy could do with a vacuum and possibly a good beating but the vase of tranquility is full of jasmine

and happily every day is a new beginning.

 

on indigo and roses

before y'all get too excited that i'm straying from my windfall path...i'm not using indigo for commercial purposes, just for the luxury of overdyeing my clothes after mending so that the mends will blend in better.

and because i love blue.

it's organically grown and i paid a fair price for it so the grower wasn't exploited.

indigo vats are like people. they need to rest in between working, are not keen on being cold and they get bored eating the same stuff all the time.

it's cold here in the deep deep southern winter so from time to time (when i want to dye) i warm my vat with twigs using this very simple heater. 



although indigo can be boiled when in its blue form, overheating when it has been reduced can destroy the colour. so the heating is something i pay careful attention to

feeding my vat some honey (that had come to the unwelcome attention of some ants) made the indigo flower go bright blue. 

it worked hard yesterday so in the evening (feeding the donkey after work as the indigo master, Michel Garcia suggests) i gave it a treat. boiled bananas strained through an old sleeve. the button at the cuff is handy for attaching the bag to a "dripping stick".

the squeezed contents might look absolutely disgusting but there are people in my family who really enjoy them

more please! it's hard to get a clear pic when Kowhai is wriggling with delight. She loves pignanas especially when they have been boiled to mush

i worked a lot with indigo during my residency in Portland last year. one of the happy side effects of overdyeing ecoprints with indigo is of course that the leaf prints of (particularly) deciduous species are enhanced by the alkali that is a necessary component of every indigo vat. that said, some yellows (such as coreopsis) are quite likely to turn red. and eucalyptus can become quite sulky. you can use almost any alkali to develop ecoprints (ash water, seawater, fermented urine) but you'll find that the prints seem to blur if you haven't bundled tightly enough, as the alkali will develop ALL of the colourant that has bonded with the cloth (not just the bits you can easily see)

i also found to my delight that Persicaria tinctoria literally grows before your eyes. a bag of fresh indigo in the refrigerator had roots from most of the nodes within 48 hours. 

which offers the opportunity for selective propagation if you're into that kind of thing. or just wanting to grow a lot of indigo from a limited seed source. 

speaking of propagating, a few months ago i had to rescue a rose (Francis Dubreuil*) that had been trashed by one of the goats and used a method i had learned from a copy of French Vogue (yes, I was surprised to find it there myself) that someone had left in the pocket of an airplane seat back in 1976

the method is ridiculously simple and works every time.

fill a pot with good quality potting mix (does not necessarily have to be cutting mix, you actually want it to retain a bit of moisture). trim your cuttings in the usual way (i like to have a bit of firm growth, nip back anything that's too soft at the tip and trim the leaves from three sets of nodes at the business end)

poke them into the pot (if the cuttings are firm enough i don't even use a dibbing stick), give it a good water and when the pot finishes dripping put it into a plastic bag (yes, i know some of your will fall into shock at the mention of a plastic bag from this quarter) and tie the top up

then ignore it all until the plants inside are begging to get out

thinking now that a row of really big pickle jars will make very fine miniature greenhouses for this method. just as long as the openings are big enough to admit pots and to allow for easy retrieval of the plants once they grow

* Francis Dubreuil was a tailor from Lyon who became a rose breeder later in life. Among his abundant output was also Perle d'Or, a completely adorable rose that has so far survived our goats (touching woods as i type). He was also father to Claudia Meilland who married Antoine Meilland (who bred the Peace rose which in France was named Madame A.Meilland...but the Peace rose story is a long one and you can find it here).

sockbundles

tis a fine thing
when the infants take an interest in the construction of things
especially when those things are warm and comfy
and are given to me

my Wild Rose [aka the Eldest of the Three] who has a B.Sc Hons and was recently awarded her wool classer's stencil
is not content with being able to do clever things with statistics and fling fleeces on tables
and [thanks to instruction by great-grandmother] churn out exquisite tatted lace at machine speed
has now turned her hand to knitting
and discovered a passion for socks.
- unlike me she can actually make two objects that are exactly alike.
 
the first pair went to her beloved.
i scored the second lot.

so of course
i bundled them up with some eucalyptus leaves

i love my socks

and was tempted to sling them in here as well

but i was firmly restrained.
they said enough was enough.
sigh.

guess i shall be wearing contrasting socks.

blues, riverside

i left Portugal behind [with some reluctance but also with plans to return]

headed for another good place

back to the beautiful Tay River at Newburgh, Scotland

to immerse myself in two days of blues

with none other than the bluesmaster himself,  Michel Garcia

my banana blues in New Orleans were good

but his henna blues were better. much better.

and of course being back at Big Cat Textiles is wonderful

Nettie and Alison gave me such a warm welcome

and when i tottered down the street for supplies i bumped into several people i knew

Newburgh really is another home from home

and then there's the bonus of peonies
[these are in the garden of the lovely woman who bakes our bread]

and down the lane near the river are spectacular dark-leaved, pink flowered sambucus

now i have two days in preparation for 'being there'
and there may just be a little more indigo dyeing this weekend
because i have to maintain my blue fingernails

so i'll leave you with another bluesman
the fabulous Hugh Laurie

the answer to yesterday's question

where should i have begun?
at the beginning.

last week i flew home, changed my socks, polished my boots, cuddled my cat
patted the dogs, had a quick gin with my family, blew some notes on the tenor sax
and then
flew to Melbourne

to teach the first of what is rapidly becoming a series of second skin classes

Sally Harvey [proprietor of the gorgeous Crockett Cottage] kindly met me at the airport and took me straight to Brunetti's on Lygon Stree for a delicious iced coffee.
it was one of those rare moments when i actually thanked the Dogs Above that i am wheat intolerant otherwise i think i could cheerfully have eaten my way through that establishment.
wall to wall cakes of every description
with a goodly percentage of them loaded with cream and chocolate [two essential daily vitamins so far as i am concerned]

that was a fine beginning.

next morning i tottered across Johnston street and up the back lanes for a bit of a wander
and a quick reconnaissance of the green trash bins outside the flower store Vasette

treasure
and lots of it

i found nerines, tiger lilies [stamens intact, thank you], gardenia, magnolia, oak, three species of eucalyptus [i found even more wandering back down the laneways], lotus, roses, orchids, cotinus and more

in short, i found abundance

which reassured me that the maxim i live by

"everything we need is here"

still works very nicely, thank you.

for this trip i tried to keep my luggage compact, taking the smallest of work kits [spectacles included in photo for scale] although i did rather kick myself for forgetting to pack my singing bowl. unlike Stuart Kestenbaum [Director of Haystack Mountain School of Craft] who commands an expectant hush just by walking to the front of the room

to get attention i have to ring a bell [better still, a bowl] or resort to making a loud "coooooeeeee" noise. so it was the latter [that, or unpack the soprano sax...which might have had the opposite effect and cleared the room]

 i could do this of course [travel lightly, i mean, not clear the room] because i was coming to silkcentral
Beautiful Silks
where we were going to be working with the most luscious of materials

SilkyMerino and #5silkcotton stitching thread

i think this combination is my all time favourite. i'm the original sensitive princess when it comes to cloth against skin.

polyester brings me out in a rash [my son says it is psychosomatic but that is nonsense.]

the itchy wool trousers of my school uniform in the '70s had me in tears [although now i am sure the dyes in that cloth were as much to blame]

but i can even sleep in SilkyMerino [purl side inwards is best of all]

 we began by making a super-simple garment that doubles as a sweet top and as a scarf [even a hoodie if you're clever] so that we could get something into the dyepot and have a present to open next morning

and then we moved on to making one of the most important tools in dressmaking
no, not forging scissors [though that would be exciting]
but making string

and then on day two we started work on our beautiful second skins, exploring almost-no-waste cutting techniques and delighting in the fabulous drape of the cloth as well as the joy of handsewing,
simple running stitch and flat fell seams...strong AND beautiful

but we needed another present to open on day three
so
we took advantage of the sucrose indigo vats that had been brewing happily [nurtured by Naomi] since Aboubakar Fofana's workshop there in November last year [which i sadly missed because i was happily in Portland]

rebundling those simple ecoprinted garments, to add patches of blue...

totally gorgeous.

i had such a splendid time and everyone seemed so happy [and the wait list for Mansfield is bubbling over] that i really think there will have to be more second skin classes.
stay tuned for an announcement later this week...

correspondence

i get a lot of correspondence from people wanting me to advise them on dyeing. some of it gets quite specific. 

i am sharing this one, not because i want to pick on this person or poke fun or be an inter-bitch but because my responses may answer similar questions for others. [please bear this in mind if you are moved to comment.]

[i have changed the name of my correspondent to the non-gender specific Jordan to save him/her possible embarrassment but otherwise have not edited their messages]


Dear Ms. Flint, I hope this email finds you well. I recently purchased your book Eco Colour and I am totally in love with it! I love the way you wrote it and all the information in it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and for creating such a wonderful book! I'm a holistic interior designer and for the first time I'm venturing into the wonderful world of natural dyeing. I'm interested in developing a line of nautical fabrics that can be used for upholstering, window treatment and beach wear. I am planning to use Linens and Silks for upholstering and window treatments, and for the beachwear I'm planning to use several blends of organic cottons. Some of these blends are a mixture of cotton with bamboo and spandex (around 5%), cotton with soy and spandex, and cotton with hemp. I wanted to kindly ask you if you could possibly guide me as to what kinds of dyes are the most permanent and the ones that are more likely to withstand fading as a result of the sun, salt water, and even chlorine from a swimming pool? I will deeply appreciate from the bottom of my heart any information that you can share with me. Thank you for being such an inspiration. My warmest regard, - Jordan 

 -------

Dear Jordan
Thank you for buying my book. I would be experimenting with local plants (and considering the impact that large scale production would have on the environment ) before launching a business.
Doing light and wash fastness tests etc.  and I'd be researching the properties of the fabrics too.

In any event you have posed rather a lot of quite specific questions. Are you wishing to engage me as a consultant?

Cordially

India

www.indiaflint.com

this message has been buzzed to you by a blue-tailed bee

 -------

Hello Ms Flin, what a pleasure to hear from you. My apologies for having bombarded you with so many questions. I am new to this and I thought that the more details I gave the better. What i wanted to know was basically if there is a particular type of natural dye that is more permanent than others. I guess the answer is not that simple. I am considering starting a home based business for local distribution. I live in a beach town where there are also lots of wooded areas which have a rich variety of vegetation. A lot of the things I create are from recycled materials also. I would love to hire you as a consultant but unfortunately i dont have a budget for it at this moment. If you provide me with your consultation fee I will make a note of it.  

Thank you again for responding to my email and congratulations on your wonderful book! 

My warmest regards,

Jordan

-------

 

dear Jordan

I too would respond more formally but as you have not advised me of your surname I am not in a position to do so. 

Nor have you given me any indication of where you live other than that you are in a beach town blessed with wooded areas. That you call it "wood" and not "bush" suggests that you are from somewhere other than Australia. That you write in English may narrow your location to an anglophonic region. But that could be anywhere and so my advice regarding the [to me unknown] vegetation would be meaningless.

If you have read the book you will know that it's not just about the vegetation, the growing location, the season of harvest but also about the quality of the local water, the choice of dye vessel and the type of fibre you wish to dye.
 
I've developed my methods based on a lifetime of working with textiles and plants. Dyeing funds my living.

Your proposal to develop a business as a result of acquiring my book is on a par with me deciding to set up as an aircraft technician after leafing through a book about planes. 

It would be both truthful and easy to say that indigo and eucalyptus are the two most durable dyes I know...but whether they would be suitable for your applications [you mention spandex and chlorine, two substances I avoid where possible] is not for me to speculate.

May I respectfully suggest that you begin by familiarizing yourself with the local flora? Learn to identify it, know what is protected and what can be gathered and then begin to conduct your own experiments within a context of responsible collection and resource management. Consider planting a dye garden. Peruse the local weed list. Make samples, conduct light and wash fastness tests and then you may be in a position to determine whether you might launch a viable business. You might even think about taking a class.

But you can't grow potatoes without digging the ground. *

cordially
India


*Unless you are going to build a raised bed. Either way it does still require some effort.

humming the blues with Happinez and in good company

yesterday there was some interesting mail

in fact, quite a lot had drifted in whilst i was

across the wild blue yonder

 some of it even had bears on it

i like bears

one of the parcels contained a lovely magazine from France

Happinez

it is not often that i see my name on the same page

as Albert Einstein

[even though he and my paternal grandfather were acquainted and 

Einstein's efforts on my grandfather's behalf in 1939 

contributed to our family's settling in South Australia, but that's another story ]

or

across from Jamie Oliver

or a scant 47 pages away from Paulo Coelho

but

what really made me happy

was that they had also published an image of my friend Roz's work

[they used mostly images that had appeared in Second Skin]

which brings me to the other bit of news

 Roz and i have dreamed up a new plan

[we had one earlier but the fates intervened]

we are calling it 

bower bird blues

and you can wear your blue jeans

if you want

+

musing on indigo and iceflowers

i don't often share my private correspondence
but
because it's nearing the end of the indigo season
and
i know some people are wondering how to deal with the remains of their harvest
indigrowingblue  has good tips

but
here's another
that blossomed when
a kind student came in yesterday with a big bag of late-season leaves...

humming happily

i'm humming along happily in New Orleans

as a guest of the Joan Mitchell Center

working on a project for an exhibition next year

under the supervision of an old friend

the silk for the project was a kind donation

from my longtime friends at Beautiful Silks

and i have the offer of back-up studio space at NOCCA 

through my lovely friend Nikki Jackson

+

one thing often

leads to another

 and when i need a break from stitching

music is never far away

later on, wandering home

i step into a flower shop

and am given another present

a twig of Eucalyptus polyanthemos

which, oddly enough

was just what i needed