Saturday, May 9, 2009

Second year woad Keväinen morsinko


Yli viikko sitten keräsin ylimääräiset lehdet viimevuotisista morsingoista ja jätin vain muutaman kasvin tuottamaan siemeniä.. sikäli kun ne kestävät Maukka-kissan jyräystä:) Maukka on vanha herra, kohta 18-vuotias yksisilmäinen kissamme. Se osallistuu aina mielellään puutarhatöihin.
Takaisin morsinkoihin, lehtiä tuli 500g, pesin ne ja silppusin ja laitoin kiehuvan veden sekaan kattilaan. Otin lämmön pois päältä ja annoin lehtien hautua 2 tuntia, siivilöin rusehtavan liemen, kuva liemen väristä alla.

In English
Over a week ago I collected leaves from most of my second year woad, I only left some plants to produce seeds... if they survive our cat:) His name is Maukka (after a Finnish punk singer from the 80s, it would be Sid in English, as Sid Vicious. Maukka was a very angry cat when he was young, he bit you if you wanted to pet him, thus the name, but he has mellowed a lot with years) and he is soon 18 years old and he has only one eye. He likes to garden with us:)
Back to woad, I got 500grams of leaves, which I washed carefully, cut to small pieces and put the pieces to boiling water in the kettle. I then turned the heat off and left the leaves for 2 hours. I strained the brownish liquid, you can see a sample of it in the picture below.
Lisäsin haaleaan liemeen pesusoodaa kunnes liemen väri muuttui tumman vihreäksi (kuva yllä), pH oli 10.
Vatkasin lientä tehosekoittimella melko kauan, mutta vaahdon väri pysyi harmaana (kuva alapuolella), hyvällä mielikuvituksella siinä voi erottaa häivähdyksen sinistä, mutta ei sellaista kuin pitäisi.

In English
I added washing soda to the luke warm bath until the color turned to dark green (picture above), the pH was then 10. I then beated the bath for quite a while with my mixer, but the froth stayed grey, it wasn't blue like it should have been (picture below).

Tässä vaiheessa aloin jo ajatella, että lehdissä ei ollut enää indigoa, mutta lisäsin liemeen sodiumhydrosulfiittia pari teelusikallista joka tapauksessa. Liemen väri muuttui ruskeaksi, mutta ei keltaiseksi... lisäsin vielä yhden teelusikallisen ja odotin toiset puoli tuntia, ennenkuin laitoin liemeen 100g valkoista kosteaa lankaa. Liemen pinnalle ei ollut muodostunut sellaista metallinhohtoista kalvoakaan niinkuin pitäisi, vain pari täplää, vaikka langat kyllä muuttuivat keltaisiksi.
Lämpötila oli n45C ja langat saivat värjääntyä 15 min. Kun otin ne ylös, ne olivat osittain hyvin hennon turkoosihtavia, ja paikoitellen vaaleanpunertavia! Väri oli todella hyvin vaalea. Hapetin niitä ja laitoin uudelleen liemeen, mutta väri ei muuttunut. Ajattelin, että jospa olin laittanut liikaa hydrosulfiittia, ja kun vielä pHkin oli aika korkea, ja siksi indigo ei kiinnittynyt ja seuraavana päivänä laitoin saman vyyhdin uudelleen lämmitettyyn liemeen. Nyt se sitten muuttui kokonaan hennon pinkiksi, vähäkin sinerrys hävisi.
Voi olla, että lehdissä ei ollut enää indigoa, kirjallisuus sanookin, että näin olisi, mutta sitten toisaalta Helen oli saanut myös viikko sitten vielä selvästi sinertävää. No, onneksi on kasvamassa uusia morsinkoja, joista kesällä varmasti tulee sinistä:)

In English
At this point I started to think that perhaps I won't get blue, but I added two teaspoonfuls of sodium hydrosulfite to the bath and waited for 30 minutes. The color was quite dark, so I added another teaspoonful and waited more. There was no coppery film, like ther should have been, only couple of coppery spots, but I added 100grams of white yarn to the bath. The temperature was 45C and I dyed the yarns for 15 minutes. When I took them out, they turned to very very pale turqoise with some pink (pink!). I oxidized them and dyed again, but the color didn't get darker. The color was really very pale.
I thought that maybe I had put too much reducing agent in the bath, and also the pH was high, and that maybe that was why there was no color and so the next day I heated the bath again and put the same yarn in it: now even the little turqoise hue disappeared and the yarn is very pale pinkish shade.
Perhaps there was no indigo in the leaves, like most of the litterature says, but maybe I did something wrong, because Helen had got blue shades from second year woad. Or there are differences in the woad strains.
Anyway, I am glad I have new plants growing and in the summer I'll get good blues:)

6 comments:

  1. Hi Leena!
    Interesting experiments with 2nd year woad!I never did, only the same year harvest which is always good. How about your left arm?
    greetings, Alet

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  2. Hi Leena the contrast between our experiments is very interesting but I have no idea why I should get some blue-not very much-and you none. I did manure my soil well last year and last year the blues were very good. Maybe my plants just had some left over. I can't try it with my Chinese woad as that is in full flower.

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  3. Thanks Alet and Helen.
    Perhaps my plants were not so well fertilised (that could be it) and that made the difference! At first I thought that I should have picked the leaves earlier and they were too much growing already. Or I didn't have enough leaves for the amount of yarn I put in the bath. How did the different stages of the extraction look compared to your woad?

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  4. I've always well composted the woad bed and my 2nd year woad experiments have also yielded pinkish colours- mainly pinky brown. Maybe it has something to do with time of harvest or perhaps the cold winters we have in Canada affects it differently.

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  5. Thanks Nina:)
    I wonder if anyone in the colder climates (Canada, Finland) has gotten blue from the second year leaves? Now I definetly have to try them again next year:)

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  6. Hi Leena I realise that I should have photographed every stage as you did! The liquid from the squeezed leaves was very dark. When I whisked there was no blue in the froth. When I reduced it the bath was a bright green ,when I dipped the fibres they stayed green till I washed them when the characteristic blue appeared underneath. We had a cold winter (for us)with temperatures going down to-10 degrees I note that Dominque Cardon says on her chapter on woad that too little is known about the variants.Maybe our woads are subtly different.

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