BLUE MONDAY

Happy August! So we harvested our first batch of polygonum tinctorium sometimes referred to as japanese indigo on Monday. We processed it today and ended up with some exciting results. The silk seemed to turn the most blue from the recipe we used. The cotton turned more of a green blue. We are working on an embroidery project for a show in 2012 in Gainesville, FL. All of the fabrics and embroidery floss will make its way into our new sewn pieces. The wonderful thing about indigo is that it is less fugitive than other plant pigments. We anticipate making a second batch where we ferment the leaves (for a month) like traditional japanese processing. This is supposed to give a brilliant and light fast blue. So todays experiments are only the tip of the iceburg in seeing what our plants can do. The polygonum has been a pleasure to grow.  As you can see on our last blog post the flowers are so pretty and you can make a beautiful dye out of it.  Also we will get a second round of the japanese indigo as we have a second crop and the plants we trimmed are growing back already. It is truly a weed.  I am posting pics of an early sugar pumpkin and a honeydew that we crossed with a cantaloup (we call it "the honeydoo doo"). delicious! XO A&J