fourth dip and a find

close to blue jean blue

sorry people for my insistence with the aizome, but you have to understand me. been trying to run a successful vat for over nine summers, yes nine summers of my life, and the results ranged from pathetic to blah in the best cases.i was developing a complex because even a  twelve year old was running these stunning dyeing sessions. how could i be so inoperative? i had experience dyeing with both natural and synthetic dyes i wasn't a new comer.i had information, on indigo  mostly scattered information granted, and recipes.

in a world of sharing it looks good to share, even when you share incomplete knowledge and  deliberately withhold the stellar points. ha!!so good for sharing and sharers.ha!!

then last year i took the plunge bought a real honest to goodness ph meter and a thermometer, no more guess workas i was able to measure for consistency. but what really brought it all together was michelle wipplinger's color coding vats.
there it was, the philosopher's stone:nigredo, albedo, citrinitas and rubedo! the knowledge of the ancients!! at last i could follow the specs and get dyeing with good results.

 anyway the other day while waiting for the vat to reduce i was surfing a bit and came across the  plant named lonchocarpus cyanescens as a source of indigotin. it grows in the african tropics  and it is known as yoruba indigo. here opens another route to be explored. right Catherine? (-_o)
enjoy this short film and notice the very dark blue obtained.

neki desu

not a catchy title or 'ill get spammed by the baddies.

the best love scene ever filmed.

have a great spring is coming weekend.



neki desu

the magic of slow

my kakishibu. this has been a long project. it started  with a friend giving me some kilos of green kaki which i processed and aged.just to give you an idea this started in 2007 so i think it  does merit the title of slow magic.
the kakishibu liquor that had been aging since 2007 saw part of its day of glory yesterday. i took about a pint of it and slowly reduced like  when you make cooking reductions. to that concentrate i added hot water and simmered it. all in all i got a relatively dense, dark liquid. i had heard it stank like the dickens, but mine doesn't. perhaps i've done something wrong along the way although i'm not complaining about the lack of odor (^_^)

funny how when i was young i just wanted to live and experience things, the faster the better. now i am in a situation where i don't care if it takes time, except of course the minutiae like waiting in line, and doing paperwork, i'm sort of distilling those  accumulated experiences relishing and enjoying them.

this is a combined project, the weaving, the fulling of the wool scarf and dyeing with akane(madder) the preparation and fermenting of the kakishibu, the shibori tieing and finally the challenge of making it work on wool.apparently it is not successful on wool.

we shall see how it all wraps up.

neki desu