Field learnin'

My roommate/schoolmate Marie and I decided to take a break from the books this weekend to attend a fiber-and-natural dye workshop at Sulphur Creek Farm organized by Ask Apparel, one of two natural dye houses in the U.S. The weather was clear and warm and the workshop was filled with amazing women. We had just as much fun sitting around and talking as we did learning how to do make beautiful things with indigo and kudzu.

The workshop followed the indigo dye process from the plants in the field through a fresh vat of ready-to-go dye, and we also harvested kudzu and learned how to turn it into a fibrous thread. (We didn't get to work as much with the kudzu because the plants harvested in preparation for the course weren't quite usable, so we got the gist of it but not as much hands-on experience.)

Rows of indigo, ready to harvest:

This vat had about 120 pounds of plants soaking in it:

Creating usable dye involves adding an alkaline substance and agitating to add oxygen. Look at how blue it was!

A sample was decanted so we could see how quickly the dye sediment was settling:

Because this process will create a dye that can be caked and saved for later, we made a fresh vat with soda ash to use for the weekend:

Indigo dyeing requires oxidation, which means fabric isn't immersed but is instead dipped and aired until the color reaches the desired shade:

Kudzu is another wonder plant that can be eaten (it's high in protein), used to create herbal medications, and of course turned into a fiber. It is best harvested at certain times of year, and goes through a process of soaking and drying and resoaking to remove the outer skin and make the vine pliable:

Did you know it's illegal to work with kudzu in Pennsylvania? Apparently the State Dept. of Agriculture is super-worried about aiding and abetting kudzu's northward migration. (I know this because the gals teaching this part of the program had come all the way from Philadelphia and have a really terrific project going there.)

Success.

Sigh. It's hard to go back to the books after a weekend like that, but there's a ton of work to be done before I go to Philadelphia on Wednesday for a much-anticipated long weekend (!).