Ammoniac Blues

This past Saturday, I went on CalTrain down to see my friend Tien, and we spent the day dyeing fiber in her yard.  The hot South Bay sun made short work of drying our results, so I was able to bring perfectly dry skeins of yarn and a t-shirt with me on the train.


Nearly thirty years ago I started my first indigo fermentation vat.  I learned how to dye fiber blue with this old method from Cheryl Kolander of Aurora Silk in Portland, OR. 


I haven't been able to keep a fermentation vat for a few years because of lack of space and because of close by neighbors - the fermentation vat has a very distinctive smell to it - whose piquancy I have come to enjoy, over the years.  But not everyone is prepared for that smell.  Some people have told me that it smells like ammonia, which it does; others have described it as 'a fishing boat stranded in still waters on a hot day'.  Even in the England of Elizabeth I, a law was passed prohibiting any woad fermentation vats within a mile of any of Her Majesty's palaces.


There was one occasion on which I was shown an indigo vat that had been made with urine, and it was the only time I have smelled anything quite that horrible.  My fermentation vats do not contain any urine, so it doesn't smell that bad, though due to the chemistry of the process, all fermentation vats smell of ammonia.  But to me, the smell of the indigo fermentation vat is a heady, fecund, and promising perfume!


Since I don't have an active fermentation vat at the moment, my friend and I decided to do a thiox (thiorea dioxide) vat instead.  Fast to prepare and it only takes about an hour before it is ready for dyeing. 


First photo below is of the surface of the thiox vat after the indigo reduced.  You can see the bright, lovely blue of the 'ai no bana', the 'flower of indigo', on the surface, bubbling and oxidizing back to blue, and you can see the clear green of the reduced vat liquid below the surface.