I Tried to Plant Dye With My Own Woad
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- Опубликовано: 3 ноя 2020
- A long requested, and for me, a very exciting dyeing video is finally here!
Hope you'll enjoy it❤️
If you want to see how one actually should do when dyeing with woad and see a more successful result, you should go and watch Mervi Pasanen's video instead: • Dyeing with fresh woad
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Hi, I hope I could help you with some of your questions.
- The change of colour from green to blue in the fabric is totally normal, because the dye is highly sensitive to oxygen. There are other dyes that react with oxygen, like the Tyrian Purple. Usually you shake the piece of cloth to accelerate the oxidation process.
- Your blue colour is pale because you used fresh woad. The ammonia (or urine) is used to ferment the plant and obtain more vibrant hues. As far as I know, you don’t need to decant the dye bath from one container to another, because the oxidation must happen in the fabric, not in the liquid.
- You definitely need more water in your dyeing pot. A rule of thumb is about 30-50 litres per kilogram of wool.
Cheers
I think the amount of leaves was to few for 30-50 liters of water.. (but what do I know, lol)
@@Coilla85 perhaps she didn't have enough leaves, but if you use less water it's more likely to have patchy dyes.
I'm really looking forward for the green dye video, it sounds interesting.
You guys are really arriving to the comment section with extremely complete knowledge and I am HERE for it
As a Chemist, I agree that the decantation is not absolutely necessary, but there are also some other things I like to mention:
- I would cut the leaves or anything else to desroy the leave-cells, as there is the Indigo mainly stored.
- The leaves have to ferment, in medieveal times they let it sit for at least 2 weeks so that the early stage of Indigo is changed into an Indigo-similar product. So you get a more vibrant collour, als Marcos already mentioned
- Usually you add just as much Sodium-Dithionite to it, to turn the solution yellow, as there is the not-water-soluble Indigo turned into a water-soluble-state to get into the plant fibers.
when I missed something or explanied it wrong, please correct me, english is not my first language.
For the finest shades of blue, you also need acetaldehyde, which in medieval times was only available in the urine of drunk people. And not merely tipsy people - they had to be flat out drunk. For this reason, tavernkeepers had their patrons use pisspots instead of just a latrine, so that they could sell the urine to dyers and laundresses, with that of the drunkest guests obviously going to the dyers, and that of the more sober ones going to the laundries.
I think the question of whether you would accept the color as a medieval person really depends on your class. If you are dressing high class then you want saturated bright colors but if you are a lower class then a duller less bright color would probably be more affordable. Cloth was precious whatever the color.
I was thinking that. They dyed cloth in second, third batch of dye which would turn out much more faded. Was still used, just not for the higher classes.
An important note: Do not try this at home without being extremely careful. Do not, as I did, do it without thick gloves, glasses, protective clothing and good ventilation. Furthermore, do not smell ammonia. I thought it would be a bad smell - it wasn't. It felt like a sharp stab in the lungs, made me tear up instantly and feel really dizzy. I cut away alot of pieces in the video, so it looked like I handled it better than I did.
I do work with ammonia only outside, with gloves, coat, protective glasses And still wear a Gas respirator. Ammonia is Very toxic. If you try to do it again, please do so only outside. Can't blame you though, been there done that. Also never leave the bottle opened. What it does is that when you leave IT opened, it keeps vapuring all the disgusting And harmful Gas. Also for next time I would recommend using only the diluted household ammonia. The concentrated one should be left in the hands of profesionals
so um some chemistry principles for you elin. When working with acidic and basic chemicals never use metal decanting containers, only use glass, plastic and (some) ceramics as these are less reactive. Always work in a WELL VENTILATED SPACE. If you have to work inside be sure to run your house fan HVAC system, open all windows and doors and run your kitchen ventilator. A window is NOT ENOUGH. Always wear closed toe shoes and long sleeves. Tie up your hair and if you can buy a recipirator or a industrial mask. If you can't get those due to covid a multilayered cloth would be BETTER than your paper mask.
First you should have chopped up the plant to get more color. You will get a much better result
Lab safety 101:
NEVER TRY TO SMELL ANYTHING
WEAR COMPLETE PPE
RESEARCH INTERACTION BETWEEN YOUR COMPONENTS
i literally screamed when you went to sniff the ammonia and screamed again when you poured on a metal container, PLEASE, PLEASE be safe when handling lab grade chemicals
Hey you took accountability! That’s all we can ask for!! Just want you to be safe, that’s all :)
The throwback clips of your "pot-problems" had me cracking up!
I’m no expert, but I did some research on woad dying while staying in Toulouse, in France, which was a center of Woad production in the Middle Ages. Their process was much longer. They made a paste of the woad leaves and formed it into balls, which they dried for weeks, until they were very hard. Then the broke up the balls, added water and fermented them. And dried it again.
Only after all that was done, did they start the dyeing process. Adding the urine etc. To the powdered, fermented woad. Having said that, I saw a palette of the range of colors you can get with woad dying. The soft blue greys you got were well within that palette. So, you had a successful outcome, even if it wasn’t exactly what you wanted.
Looking forward to indigo dying!
Yes, I've also seen it alot. As far as I've understood it, the balls are made in order to save the woad for later dyeing. However, since I had fresh woad, and also possibility to dye directly,I decided to just take the leaves, as many of the recepies said. It would though be interesting to try out those woad balls!
@@elinabrahamsson9442 and I loved watching it, and am excited about the indigo.
If you’re going to be trying for the medieval woad process, then it would always have been made into balls. Woad wasn’t the sort of dye that the villager did for herself, so it wasn’t used fresh. The method you learned in Toulouse was the correct one. What you’re doing is the modern method. There is a slight difference between the blues of indigo and woad. Woad is a yellow based blue. Indigo is a red based blue.
As I understand it, indigo took over the market from woad precisely because the color was stronger, and it was much easier to get a strong color from indigo.
@@marthahawkinson-michau9611 Absolutely right. It was nothing to do with the shade of blue. That was just a point of interest. Indigo took over for ease of use. Woad can give a strong colour, but it’s all to do with hours of sunshine the plant receives, when growing, hence, importing it from southern France would give you the best colour, though of course it was grown in England, too. Was it Bleu de Lectoure that you visited? Amazing place. A master madder dyer lives not too far from there, and together they make some fabulous blacks.
Shoutout to the absolute madlad who first saw some leaf water and went “I’m gonna pee in that”
"Thee wouldn'st believeth mine day m'friends. Last night mine husband came home pisseth drunk and mistook mine dye potte for the chamber potte. When I riseth this morn and removeth mine new apron it turned blue before mine very eyes!"
And then fell in it. And proceeded to try and air out their clothes.
My favorite comment😂🤣
the pee needs to ferment and become ammonia first . its not good fresh.
i lile to think at that as a happy accident
Me while watching: “PUT THE CAP BACK ON THE BOTTLE!”
@Riva Mikhlin i was thinking not because spills but OH GOSH PUT THE CAP ON TO CONTAIN THE FUMES YOU ARE INDOORS OH GOSH
I love how your parents are so supportive, like helping you film and stuff. It’s very nice.
Learning things like this always makes me wonder....Who did this first and why? Can you imagine the first person playing around dying fabrics with plants...thinking they're going to get a green out of this plant...taking it out of the pot and....*gasp!* ...it "magically" starts turning blue! Us humans are such amazing creatures! Thank you, Elin, for sharing all these processes with us! I so look forward to your beautiful and informative videos.
I'm just gonna say, it looks like you live in a fairytale world because of your video locations and the old clothing making videos. Thank you for sharing this with us. 😍😍
haven’t finished the video but that denim outfit at the start is so awesome!
Thank you! I have dyed it myself😊 but with a chemical dye...🙈
That was fun! Also, if you wanna dye with pee, you don't wanna take the fresh stuff but need to let it sit a while until it turns a nice orange... I am sure everybody is happy that they know that now 🙃
...there are so many things the ancients did with pee! lol They didn't let anything go to waste. ;-)
I guess my roommates wouldn't appreciate me getting into this hobby ...
Pee was used for tanning leather as well, I understand it was used to make the white buckskin used in early America.
@@topknotsrule oh, i didn't know about the white buckskin ☺️ but that's why the tanneries were always on the outskirts of the town and also downwinds!
From what I have seen in videos (haven't tried it myself) I think it is suppose to ferment 3 weeks. In the Tudor Monastery Farm series, one of the guys uses it to make a salve to disinfect wounds that the sheep get from shearing. ruclips.net/video/fhZv2iYuWVE/видео.html it is at mark 23:10
Beautiful dyeing! So excited since I also dyed using Woad! Though I accidentally dyed my yarn pink the first try, before making a blue yarn 😂
Also, in case you are wondering I made a video on dyeing with woad and the mistakes I made and how that changed the color of the final yarn. Also, the difference of the color right from the pot vs after a rinse is pretty stark in my experience as well. Right from the pot, my wet yarn had a pretty deep rich blue color, that faded to a dusty blue after rinsing it and drying. I also rinsed with vinegar after allowing it to dry overnight to bring the pH closer to neutral!
Oh yes!!!! I loved your video on making under wear for a flapper! 😊🌺💗
I couldnt find the video. Is it still on your channel?
Hi! There is a castle in France (the castle of '' Guédelon") that a group of people are building since 1995 with medieval techniques only. Surrounding this castle, many little shops (if I can say that way) provide constructors all the materials they need (handmade materials with, again, medieval techniques only). There are also some people who dye all the tissues needed with herbs they've planted. For the blue colour, they use (I don't know how to say it in English) ''réséda" and the leaves of ''pastel''. I hope it will help you some way (I love what you do!)
Have you seen the videos on RUclips? In English they are Fires of Guedelon. I love them. Also in 2014 there was an English series called The Secrets of the Castle (there are videos on RUclips as well) where they show Guedelon and devote part of an episode to dying. Sorry when someone mentions something I love, I get excited.
@@volvacations2186 Of course I saw these videos! Actually, it was while going there that we learned that they were shooting these videos ( they told us to go and watch then because they were fun and interesting... and I agree!) :)
Pastel is the french for woad! Furthermore in Lectoure (a little city near to Toulouse) there is a famous industry of "bleu de Lectoure", the blue of Lectoure, that is basically the blue coming from the woad, but they still use traditional techniques to obtain it. In this region it is common to see peoples with a blue handkerchief around the neck that is made in Lectoure. They have, if I remind well, a lot of informations about woad dyeing and how to obtain a strong colour.
@vol thank you for the recommendation! I saw secrets of the castle but didn’t know they had their own RUclips channel!
They beat the leaves i remember
14:00 I've never seen fabric dyed more suspensefully! But historical aspect aside, you ended up with some really nice lavender shades. Im excited about this series, I really enjoyed the madder and walnut video and it inspired me to try! I have a jug of goldenrod dye liquor sitting in a freezer hoping its not going bad and Im waiting to collect black walnut and pokeberry as well. And some fabric which I dont have yet
I used poke berry, in a very raw and rudimentary fashion, and got an odd brown.
The Madder and Walnut dye project turned out to be beautiful.
I have to admit, as a chemist this was hard to watch. Not so much because of the actual reactions but because of the safety precautions. If you ever do this again, you really should wear goggles to protect your eyes in case a few drops 'splash' upwards. Also you shouldn't touch your face or mask with the gloves you used to touch the bottle, there might be residue or drops on there. Aside from that, I loved your video very much
As far as I know you had different grades of woad dyed cloth, depending on how much dye was used, the number of passes through the bath and how much fabric had already been dyed with that bath.!The bright and saturated ones would be more expensive than the lighter blue, grey blue and lavender-y side of the spectrum. I see those tones in art of the Middle Ages so it looks like it’s authentic but maybe not what you were hoping for? Also wet fabric will always be darker than dry fabric, even when you just look at regular laundry. It’s always tricky getting an exact colour. You can aim darker on the indigo or you could test swatch and iron or blow dry to get a better sense of the end result.
Your reaction to the dye working is heartwarming, and the end result is wonderful! Thank you for another excellent video!
You had me really stressed out when you kept touching your face immediately after handling the chemicals & when you were using ammonia without a respirator and ventilation. You can give yourself respiratory chemical burns by inhaling harsh fumes from ammonia.
Really? Now I understand what they meant in a video I saw on pig farming where they said the air is full of ammonia and that is what the pigs live like for bacon
@@crispsaturday chemical pneumonia is a real thing. Here in Norway, ammonia is a normal household cleaning chemical and it's such a typical man thing to basically mix it 50-50 with water the first time they clean anything and end up with anything from a mild to a severe case of it. I've known two unrelated dudes who've done it.
@@GreenMonkeyToaster my grandmother used ammonia to clean her oven and kitchen floor I always kept out of the kitchen when she did this( in Norway) . I believe she learned this at "husmorskolen" (housewife school).
This is just what I needed to distract me from the US election!
I've been dyeing with tea and coffee lately and I've been really having fun. It's a lot nicer to have the house smelling of tea than the weird smell of rit dye. Awesome work growing the plants, that's like ultra creative points!
Exactly, that is what brought me here 😂
What an emotional rollercoaster! As someone whose favourite colour is also blue this was so fun AND THE FINAL RESULT, WHAT SOFT NICE COLOURS. I realise it's not what they'd want back then but modern me likes pastels too. Watching you sew and dye with trial and error gives me ideas and inspires me for my own fantasy story, before things like synthetic dyes, and realistically how much would what colour cost in a given place etc. Your whole... everything, is very good, I'm a big fan. Keep it up, very excited to see indigo too (MORE BLUE)
I did some dyeing with fresh woad this summer and I totally agree with you about there being no measurements anywhere! I used soda ash instead of ammonia which is less smelly, and I also added tiny amounts at a time to avoid taking it too far. My results were quite successful and I managed to get a deep denim blue on wool and a pale blue on alpaca and silk.
My advice would be to harvest your woad in its first year, and earlier in the year, the young leaves have the highest concentration of colour. I also ripped my leaves up but I'm not sure if that made a difference. If you're using commercial fabric you could try scouring the fabric to get rid of any residue from the factory. Also when you take your fibre out don't let it drip over the pan or squeeze it out as this introduces oxygen to the dye and then there is less available to bind to the fabric. Woad pigment oxidises so it is possible that it continued to oxidise overnight which changed the colour. Also it's quite common for dyed fabric to look like it changes colour as it drys which is always sad when you love the colour in the pot.
Coreopsis is a really fun easy plant to grow for dyeing at it produces lots of pretty yellow flowers all summer and can be modified to produce different shade. I also had quite a bit of success with oak galls and iron modifier to produce a grey. I feel like working with natural dyes is a bit like gardening, you have to use a fair amount of intuition and guesswork because it's so variable.
The excitement when you first remove the fabric and see the colour change is magical and truely joyful.
Do you know what species of woad you grew? The woad I'm more familiar with is 'Isatis tinctoria' which grows 1 to 4 feet tall (potentially over a meter), which I notice your plants didn't, and they also didn't appear to have the yellow flowers I was expecting.
This plant is biennial, which means that in the first year it will make this "cabbage"-like bush and in the next year it will grow the stalk with the flowers and it will make seeds.
@@YarnAndy Ah, intersting. I wonder if next year the colour would be stronger : )
@@cheerful_something_something from what i've read, you have to use young woad leaves: after a year or so, the leaves will turn blue meaning that the plant used the molecule that makes the dye meaning you won't be able to use it
Cool, Thank you for your responses, I'm learning a lot today : D
I loved seeing your family helping you create both an amazing video and wonderfully successful natural dye from scratch! Thank you for brighten my day/night!💙
What a great video...I always love it when people try things from scratch, it just feels so historical.
Also it just smiled to see when you got so excited with your dyed fabric (It reminds me of myself) and your language, Swedish, is so lovely!
The darkest woad color I've ever seen came from woad that was dried and turned into balls. And green was made by overdying with something yellow like weld.
"Why do I always have to SMELL things?!"
It was so cool to see this process. Your videos are unique and delightful.
The dye reacts with the oxygen and that’s why it changes from green to blue.
That what I remember from a bbc tv series called ‘secrets of the castle’. Where historians Peter Ginn, Ruth Goodman and Alex Langlands visit Guedelon Castle in France.
There are many series in witch they reenact historical times.
ruclips.net/video/EAruY1lv6N4/видео.html
At 13.12 the plant dye story starts.
Yes! I was checking comments to see if anyone else had shared this. There was definitely more treatment of the woad plant to get more colour out into the water. Great series, but wonderful to see this video with the excitement!
@@aandscatherall yes, the dried the plant and then grind it. Maybe it makes the dye stronger.
But the woman also mention you needed a lot of plant for a the dye to come out strong.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE their series. One of my favorite is Tales from Green Valley. It helps me think about my garden and I used some of their ideas during quarantine when I couldn't get some items. (Not the pee/ammonia though :-))
@@volvacations2186 loved them too!
i LOVE THOSE 3 PEOPLE SO MUCH
I am not sure if you have seen it, but Engineering Knits did a woad dyeing video on RUclips with wool yarns. She is an engineer, and her video was very scientific. She also created a pretty pink with her first attempt.
My mom used to use ammonia as a regular, every day household cleaner, so seeing you play with it for the first time is really amusing me.
Elin: "the window is open"
Me: "so is that door! I didn't know we did that anymore!"😂
I don't know why my brain did that
Who knew we owned a thousand salad plaatttteeeesssss
@@simig2793 There'll be actual real live people, it'll be totally strangeeeeee! Why am I so ready for this dayyyyyy!
@@erinhildebrand3284 Cause for the first time in forever
There’ll be music, there’ll be light!
For the first time in forever
I’ll be dancing through the night…
Hahhaha.. I loooove frozen and I'm glad someone out there loves it as much as I do. :') nice to meet you.
@@simig2793 😂nice to meet you too, I think that this was the only true way to meet😂, on a video of how to dye material with woad and start singing "For the first time in forever" with a stranger in the comment section because my brain decided to fill in the gaps and turn it into a Disney singalong😂👍
@@simig2793
Dont know if I'm elated or gassy but I'm somewhere in that zoneeeee! But for the first time in foreverrrrrr I won't be aloneee. *looks at chicks*
Once again I have to say: I love your videos. Not only the topics of them, but your video exectution is so wonderful, each video is a bliss to watch.
If no one has commented, be extremely careful not to mix the ammonia with chlorine bleach. It reacts and creates chlorine gas which is deadly.
Thanks for sharing your adventures with us. We can’t grow woad here, well, at least in Colorad because it’s considered a noxious weed and invasive species. I love the blue it creates, so I was looking into it a few years ago. I watched several videos about how to make it and the process is apparently somewhat similar to indigo dyeing, which largely replaced it. Most of them used the stale urine for the fermentation process. I cannot imagine that ammonia smelled good, but I would imagine that the stale pee process would smell a hundred times worse.
Queen Elizabeth 1 made a law forbidding the use of woad near towns as the smell was so bad.
That might have been because of the ammonia and acetaldehyde in the stale urine they used. Fun fact: human urine only contains acetaldehyde, which is needed for the finest blues, when the person … expelling … it is flat-out drunk. I wonder how someone discovered that.
@@ragnkja Accidental chemistry at it’s finest!!!!!
Urine, by the way, was a common commodity in the ancient world and even until quite recent times. It ferments into ammonia and some gardeners spray it as a plant food on lawns. The Romans collected it in vats and used it in fullering cloth. It was also used even in the 19th century to make KnO2 Potassium Naturite for making gunpowder.
The thing that make your dye-related videos is understanding. In France where I live, dyers have strictly separate guilds between blue/black dyers and red dyers, because of the differents methods and products. This situation continues even after the banning of guild organisation during the French Revolution. And when I compare your video about walnut/madder dye and this one, the reason is obvious. Thank you for all your very interesting videos and stay well :)
Haha your mom was so cute when it started changing color. It's so sweet to see your parents helping and supporting you. And your beautiful kitty too!
I loved this! I think a person experiencing honest unfiltered joy about something they really love doing and feel nerdy about is one of the most beautiful things to see. A gorgeous moment of happiness for me in an otherwise stressful time (I'm American overseas voter >_
While I know that this didn't turn out exactly as you wanted, watching your joy when you pulled the fabric out of the pot and watching it turn blue brought tears to my eyes. Watching your videos feels like having a glimpse into the past, and they're so beautiful and calming to watch. Thank you for the time, effort, and abundance of research you put into your content!
if you're working with ammonia you should be wearing eye protection. Also, I think the reason the color changed over time is that the woad mixture continued to react with the oxygen just at a much slower rate because the fabric wasn't saturated with the woad mixture anymore.
I'm a culinary school graduate that loves all things historical and handmade. I bumped into your channel while looking through historical cooking and I've really enjoyed your videos, even though I don't sew.
Y'know considering how vague the instructions were I think you did as good as you could have on a first try, this type of thing takes a lot of experimentation and I can't imagine that medieval people managed to get super vibrant colours from the get go either so I don't think you should beat yourself over it! Also bit of a side note but I'm wondering if the fabrics had a strong smell?
I love your excitement when it started working! All in all a very interesting video and i really like how it turned out✨
I think what happened over night could have been the longer exposure of oxygen, i‘m not sure if you said when you washed them out, but it can happen that it continued to develop, if there was still some dye in there. So bringing it back to neutral with water should stop the process.
Also when working with toxic materials, maybe don’t touch your face😅😅
I've watched quite a few videos of fabric turning blue after getting taken out of an indigo or woad vat and it never gets any less magical
It makes me so happy when you upload a new video!
I loved the joy & excitement on your face seeing the colour develop.
This was amazing. It makes me wonder how our ancestors found the procedures to create the color. Thanks for the video, it is fascinating!
I had the same thing with the colour changing when dry! I dyed some cotton using acorns and iron, and when it came out of the dye bath it was almost black. But now it's dried a mid grey colour, which I'm still happy with but it's so much lighter than I expected. So you aren't alone!
I tried with hawthorn and a diluted iron modifier, and a dark grey ended up as a light dusty purple.
No teacher like experience, I suppose :)
@@wiggle_duck9063 still sounds like a lovely colour! And I find the unpredictability part of the fun :)
Naturally dyed fabrics always dry lighter than what you see wet
What a wonderful experiment! I love the final color. Have you ever had henna tattoos or hair dye? They develop the final color over about 24hrs, so I'm not too surprised that your color continued to change overnight.
I tried dying with black beans and my fabric came out the most beautiful teal color and I was so pleased with it! By the next morning it was the ugliest grey. So disappointing. I think chemistry is just complicated.
I love how supportive your family is! ❤
I havent even watched the whole video yet but I already love it 🥰
Thank you for this video!! I'm also getting into plant dying as well and plan to plant my own woad this spring (I gasped so loud when I saw this in my feed). It's nice to have a preview of what I'm getting into!!
Well, the plant dying is alchemy on its own and as you mentioned, every little detail can make a difference. Trial and error is inevitable, keep going. And I hope someone will provide you with answers to your questions. And I must say it looked like a magic trick when you pulled the fabric out of the pot, wow. Great video, thank you for sharing this with the world
Super amazing seeing these things appearing in front of us after so much work. This was honestly very inspiring and emotional. ❤
This is so interesting! Very cool. And that pot! I applauded. On my screen most of the fabric looks like a really lovely lavender/lilac color.
it's adorable however how supportive your parents are in the background just hanging out, filming getting excited with you
I think it is a very pretty shade of blue..it will make a lovely medieval dress ! :)
I absolutely love the outcome. It’s lovely
Wow. Awesome. Thank you so much for the information. I like to look for plants like woad to go in my food forest garden project.
I'm starting year 4 & in the planning stage for textiles & dye gardens now even though I probably won't be ready to plant them until next fall.
I'd love to see more natural dye videos like this. This is a great skill to teach people. You do it well.
It wasn’t wrong... it was a learning experience and it was amazing to be allowed to observe your efforts and yes, frustrations. Extremely interesting and inspiring and it is thrilling that you got a special range of grey shades... write this process down and continue experimenting. You will have a well documented series of different dye outcomes to draw on for the future. Thank you for sharing. It was so cool!
That moment with your mom was so cute! So nice how supportive your parents are ❤️
I love your commitment to trying new things..Never give up.
I don't know anything about plant dye, but I love the grey/blue result! I think it's stunning, you did a wonderful job🙌❤️!!
Oh man I’m so happy I found your channel. This is what life is about: finding your passion and going all in. You’re such an inspiration. Amazing work 💙
What a great-sized pot! Seeing the colour change like that was very interesting... like a magic trick or a science experiment! Well done.
Do not be upset with your first attempts. Learning from our mistakes is how we grow to understanding. I think maybe the dye just ran out after dipping in cloth after cloth. Because that's what happens. So much dye bath can only dye so much weight of fabric. And I think you didn't weigh how much fabric you were going to be dyeing. After so much fabric the dye won't take anymore, it will be spent. Maybe you should try it with butterfly pea flowers for the blue you desire?? I know they often did use woad in the middle ages, but they also tried smashing snails to oxidize the green rotten guts to create royal purple colors too, lol. The science is very fascinating. Great share. Don't be too hard on yourself. I think you did great. Thank you for sharing.
I am not a chemist in any way, shape, or form. But what little I remeber from chemistry lessons, actually had me expecting the change in hue, considering that the dye is receptive to oxygen and ph changes.
This process kind of reminded me of developing analog photographs. There is something almost magical to see the colour develop like this. Makes me wonder, wether it was precieved as witchcraft at any point in time.
Hi Elin, i'm a huge fan of you and i'm learning Swedish because i love your accent! I know videos about yourself are not your usual style but i would love like a hair care routine or a video showing your most worn hairstyles, or i would absolutely adore a look book kind of a thing just showing your favourite everyday outfits!!!!. You are amazing!
Other Elin Fans give this comment a thumbs up if you'd like to see these videos too!
*EDIT*
A day in the life or morning routine video would be amazing as well!
this was wonderful to watch! i cant for more plant dying adventures !
Oh this is so cool!
Awesome work, so exciting! 😁👍
It must have been so magical to see the fabric change colour before your eyes way back when! Really lovely video and so much commitment - well done!
I got all teary when you got excited about your initial results, when you pulled out the material and oxygenated it...I SO enjoy your videos 😁
Just remember that defeat often teaches us more that victory. I think what you are doing is fantastic and I was thrilled to see this experiment. I always look forward to your videos!
Great work keeping a “growth mindset” while you tried this adventure! Just so cool to see you go from seed to coloured cloth, even if the results weren’t exactly what you were wanting!
You are by far my favourite RUclipsr - I live every emotion with you in your projects...
The result is beautiful! I can't wait to see the indigo 😊
I remember seeing a video on people making little balls of woad as they would have in medieval times to sell and such. Which was very different from the method you used which was very interesting!
Those colors are lovely
Before this video I only knew about woad in the context of Runescape (lol), but it was so cool to see it being used in real life! And home-grown too! I’m excited for future dyeing adventures :)
Also another thing to think about is the PH of the water coming out of your tap. That also can have an effect on dying stuff if your water PH is off.
Great job! Dying can be tricky and there are always factors that can cause weird results. Heck the other day I was over dying some old cotton sheets bright blue with a chemical dye. I made sure to strip any build up grime in them and prep them to the instructions. When I pulled it out of the dye bath it was bright green. When it dryed I ended up with a med blue gray on the white parts and dark green gray on the dark blue strips.
I think you did a great job regardless of the outcome! I love your adventurousness and how excited you are by the whole process - too many people take things for granted these days about how hard our ancestors had it just trying to exist daily, and how complicated life really was for them. Great job, I really enjoy your videos and I am really looking forward to the indigo one!!
What a journey!!
I am so impressed that you had so much success (even if it doesn't feel that way.)
Thank you for sharing.
I love this so much! 👏🏻
Love the denim jumpsuit!!
You put a lot of forethought, research and hard work for a long time so it’s understandable IMO to be disappointed. I agree with you it was a great learning experience and you practically need a chemistry degree to fully understand the complex ph and chemical manipulation in this dye. Your attitude is good, and with that modern eye you could create something special. Maybe auction a piece to your textile fans! So glad I stumbled onto your channel. 😊
Oh this is super interesting. I’ve been thinking of growing my own woad, madder and other dyeing plants. Thank you for the video!
I checked my chemistry book and here’s what it says about making indigo: “the indigo and woad plants don’t actually contain indigo, they contain a sugar called indican, which can be made into indigo. First the indican needs to react with water into indoxyl and glucose, then the indoxyl molecules need to oxidize to make indigo. That indigo is not water soluble, so it can’t soak into the fibres. To make it soak in it needs to be reduced into white/yellow indigo. After that it will oxidize back into indigo when exposed to air.”
Oh also it says 100kg of leaves make about 1,5 to 2kg of indigo, so you probably needed more woad to dye that amount of fabric
Be sure to check your local regulations before growing woad. It was banned in our area as a noxious weed and invasive species.
Woad is a native plant where I live, so that shouldn’t be an issue, but I’ll check anyway, thanks for the info
Cartoon Kitty if it’s native to your area, you should be fine. We lived in the high desert of Colorado at the time, and I found out, fortunately, before I purchased the seeds. Interestingly enough, if they are notified of it, you can go and harvest it for them (they tell you how to do it to avoid scattering the seeds) and as long as you dispose of the seeds properly so that they can’t germinate, you can use the rest of the plant. At least that was the rule when I found the information. Not sure if it’s changed now or not. Unfortunately, I didn’t know of any at the time, so I never got to exercise that particular capability.
Thanks for reminding me to plant my woad seeds!
Your joy and excitement is wonderful to see! The dye bath will become exhausted after so many dyings so it will get lighter and lighter. Also the pH will change the more you use the dye bath. It's a tricky process but I'm VERY impressed that you jumped in feet first on this! I've been dying for 40 years and I still get scared of indigo, lol!
Wow, 40 years? That's so cool. Cloth dying vidoes are so amazing. It's like a surprise, you'll never know what it'll look like. Amazing 😍
I love your videos and the editing style you have! You inspire me to one day also make my own medieval dresses but I just want to say... I was screaming when I saw how little protection and care you had with the chemicals you knew are dangerous. I would recommend next time from the start to wear gloves, glasses, a mask and roll your long sleeves down to your wrists before even opening any potentially dangerous chemicals. When you walked away from the open bottle of ammonia... please don't do that again and have the window open from the start.
I've been waiting for this ❤️❤️❤️ beautiful video as usual!
Hi! :) So happy to see a new video.
Lovely video - and your mom is a doll
Woad is so finicky! The colours you got are all lovely 😍
You may not be completely pleased with the results, but oh my how beautifully they complement your eye color. Great job!
As always your videos are just lush and gorgeous. The work and artistry you put into your videos and the work in them is fantastic. 💕
In regards to the color woes - from what I've seen with historical methods woad used to be processed before it was used as a dye. It was cut into small pieces, packed into balls, and then allowed to dry completely, which I assume makes the dye itself leach out more easily into the dye bath (if nothing else cutting it up should since it would increase surface area, but I'm guessing drying it does, too).
But for what it's worth I think to color turned out to be beautiful even if it wasn't as strong and pure of a blue as you were hoping for.
so part of the problem with getting inconsistent results from the same dye bath is that you are adding oxygen to the dyebath when you drain and squeeze your fabric into the bath. you want to avoid that as much as possible by catching the fabric in a smaller bowl or a deep plate or something. Indigo adheres to oxygen molecules, so as you add oxygenated water (the drips) you loose indigo. also, you want to build up color depth by doing multiple dips. With Japanese indigo traditions you want to dip once a day for multiple days in a row, giving the fibers a chance to get thoroughly dried (oxygenated) between each dip. I'm betting that greener piece of fabric didn't get to fully absorb oxygen before you dipped it again. you might be able to correct the greenish tint by doing a rinse in water, it might blue up some more that way. its still a very pretty color, and the fabric would make a great lower-class impression with how it looks right now. but if you want a deeper shade of blue, all you have to do is make another woad or indigo bath. Both plants have the same dye chemical (indigotin), they just grow it in different quantities. And yes, they are much lighter looking when they are dried. Its always hard to imagine just how much lighter something will end up when you are looking at a wet fiber. That's why dying is so fascinating and challenging!
The music of suspense and drama was epic!