Dyeing with Fresh Indigo Leaves

August 20, 2020 ~ Catharine Ellis ~ 9 Comments

On some days it’s hard to believe how recently we traveled freely worldwide, meeting new people and experiencing new places. Three years ago I attended the natural dye symposium in Madagascar, where I first met Hisako Sumi who started me on my current journey of making and maintaining indigo fermentation vats. As I was harvesting Persicaria tinctoria leaves in the garden, I was reminded of the fresh leaf indigo dyeing that we saw being done in Madagascar.

Many of us are growing indigo in our gardens right now and have likely had the pleasure of experimenting with fresh leaf indigo dyeing on silk. It’s like magic to see the lovely turquoise color emerge from the cold leaf bath.

The indigo that grows in Madagascar is Indigofera erecta. It is a perennial in that climate and the leaves are harvested from the bushes as needed. The leaves were used to dye the raffia fibers directly. There was no vat or reduction.

Yet, the dyers took this “cold” process one step further. The ambient temperature dyebath produced a lovely clear turquoise blue color on the raffia. When heat was applied, the color deepened and shifted.

This approach of heat application was new to me. When I inquired about it, both Hisako and Dominique Cardon indicated that they were both familiar with this phenomenon. Hisako sent me an image from a scientific report done by Dr. Kazuya Sasaki that documented the range of color that could be obtained from fresh leaf woad by increasing the temperature. Once armed with that information I was able to reproduce that range of color, nearly exactly, on silk and and on multi-fiber test strips, though the results were not precisely the same as those we saw in Madagascar.

_{Indigo vat dyeing compared to fresh woad leaf dyeing of various fibers, at different temperatures.}

I have always understood that the process of fresh leaf dyeing with indigo is primarily used on silk – a protein. Yet, the dyeing we witnessed in Madagascar was done on raffia. Why did this process work so well on raffia- a cellulose fiber? I posed the question to my colleague, Joy Boutrup. “Raffia is almost pure lignin” she said. Lignin is an organic polymer and has a strong affinity for dye.

This week I repeated the tests with Polygonum tinctorium on silk broadcloth and raffia. I used a greater quantity of leaves this time – a blender full of leaves for a few small samples vs. less than 100 g. I puréed the leaves this time rather than chop them up. The “coldest” blue is a deeper shade but otherwise the results are very similar. I freely admit that I don’t understand, chemically, why the colors change with the temperature:

Are there other dyes attaching?
Has the indigo been transformed by the temperature?

Maybe someone else can enlighten.

I have always suspected that the lightfastness of the fresh leaf indigo dye is not to the same level as the color obtained from a well reduced indigo vat. I will do lightfast tests on this range of color and report back in a later blog.

Three years ago, the trip to Madagascar taught me about an approach to dyeing that I had never seen before – truly one of the gems of travel. We may not be free to move around for now, BUT other opportunities continue to present themselves on the web. One of the most exciting upcoming events is this year’s Textile Society of America Symposium: Hidden Stories: Human Lives.

Originally planned to be held in Boston this fall, Hidden Stories: Human Lives will now be live and completely online October 15-17. This biennial event brings together scholars, curators, and artists from all over the world who will present their original research in the form of organized panels and talks. Fee structures for the symposium have been completely re-vamped in order to make this event accessible to all – no matter where in the world you might be. Registration has just opened and you can see the full program here. In addition, You can also read about the keynote and plenary speakers. Hope to see you there!

World Connections Through Natural Dyeing – please become a part of this!

May 9, 2017November 10, 2019 ~ Catharine Ellis ~ 4 Comments

When we find something that truly engages our passion, we tend to broaden our community to include other people who share that same passion. This has happened for me repeatedly with natural dyeing. I have mentors from Europe and Asia and have met dyers all over the world who have taught me lessons and shared information about their practices. I have a global community of friends through natural dyeing.

Last fall, I was in Oaxaca, Mexico. While there, I was introduced to a long and deep tradition of dyeing with plants and dye sources that I never had access to. Rocio Mena Gutierrez, a young designer and natural dyer from Mexico, recently sent me some amazing photos of old indigo tanks and logwood trees from the Oaxaca region.

200 year old indigo tanks, where they hope to process indigo this fall in Oaxaca, Mexico

logwood tree mexico — Logwood tree, Oaxaca

Logowod heartwood, mexico — Heartwood of the logwood tree, where the dye is contained

Couleur Garance, the natural dye gardens in Lauris France, will be holding its biennale Symposium on Natural Colours in October, 2017. I attended this event in 2013. It is a remarkable meeting of dyers, scientists, growers, artists, and artisans. It is to be held in the setting of the natural dye gardens of Lauris. These are the gardens that Michel Garcia helped to found.

Conservatory Garden of Dye Plants, Lauris – Version 2 — Dye Gardens of Lauris

Couleur Garance has invited artisans and teachers from Mexico to participate this year, bringing a global perspective to the event. Their challenge, now, is to raise funds to help the Mexican presenters travel to France.

In the spirit of international learning and community, I invite you to join me in helping to support this project. They have set up an online fundraiser to help make this possible.

I send this out, as I am about to embark on an adventure of my own. Tomorrow I will travel to Madagascar and the International Festival of Plants, Ecology, and Colours. I don’t know what I will learn, or whom I will meet, but I feel confident that I will return home with a deeper understanding of the world and its use of natural color. Most of all, my world community will again expand, as a result of this experience.

Growing Color: A Symposium and a Lifestyle

October 14, 2016November 10, 2019 ~ Catharine Ellis ~ 12 Comments

We are about to have our first killing frost here in western North Carolina and it’s time to collect seeds. This morning I watched a squirrel cross the road with an enormous black walnut in his mouth. There are plenty of black walnuts in the freezer. I’ve collected seeds from my French marigolds. I’m not sure of the tagetes variety but the seeds were brought back 8 years ago from Couleur Garance in Lauris, France and the plants grow taller (about 1 meter tall) than our garden shop variety. They produce plenty of flowers that are easy to harvest and dry.

Black walnut

Marigold

Weld and marigold seeds

Marigold

My Japanese indigo (Polygonum tinctorium) is blooming so next year I’ll have my own seeds to plant. We had an unusually dry summer here and the seeds on the madder plants didn’t mature but usually I would be collecting those as well. I’ve been collecting and drying staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) leaves as a great source of tannin.

Sumac leaves, stripped from the branches

Staghorn sumac

The tiny weld (Reseda luteola) seedlings in the garden will turn into a valuable crop of dye next summer. Each year I harvest about 5 pounds of dried weld from a 4’ x 8’ bed.

Japanese indigo flowers

Weld seedlings

As I prepare my own garden for the winter, the North Carolina Arboretum is preparing the first Growing Color Symposium, November 5, 2016. The event was conceived with the idea of dyers and farmers collaborating to grow plants that produce color.

Anne de la Sayette , of France, is our keynote speaker. I met Anne when she and Dominique Cardon were co-chairs of the ISEND Natural Dye Symposium, La Rochelle, France in April 2011. Anne created and led the Regional Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer in Horticulture (CRITT) where she initiated and managed a 15-year innovative project on natural dyes. We are very excited to have her here.

Sara Bellows is another of our speakers. She founded Stony Creek Colors in Tennessee She is raising and processing indigo right here in the United States. We are all anxious to hear more about this project.

There will be other speakers and displays. Come and join us if you can. We hope this is only the beginning of a long conversation about growing color here in the mountains of North Carolina and beyond.