Indigo Madder/Bran Vat – Week 9

Indigo on Linen

Well I haven’t been very consistent in my record keeping..
But my little Indigo vat has had daily care and feeding..
I had to change the heating system from a crock pot to a brew mat, because the water in the crock pot evaporated quickly since I wasn’t able to keep a lid on it.
I also put a heat resistant pad under the heating pad because the counter top did get quite warm.

I had some difficulties at first to get a good blue from the vat. So I tried various things. I had been sprinkling dry bran flakes into the vat, but that tended to float to the top. So I ‘cooked’ the bran a bit into a porridge, by adding some hot water. Then I added the madder to the porridge and let that ferment for a few days. I leave the fermenting bran/madder mixture on top of the heating pad as well.
That worked better, but I still wasn’t getting very strong colours.
So I kept reading and researching..
In the J.N Liles – The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing book, he suggests adding a bit of yeast to the mixture. That worked and I achieved some beautiful blues on Linen/Bamboo.

My little vat has now grown to 3 vats. Each at various stages of fermentation.