One of the lovely, and unexpected, side effects of visiting Fe y Lola‘s rug weaving workshop in Teotitlán del Valle was meeting Elsa, another family member. Like Omar, who conducted our tour, Elsa is devoted to preserving and sharing the methods for dying with natural ingredients. Unlike Omar, Elsa teaches classes.

With my sister, Nef, coming to visit, Dorothy scheduled a two day class for them in February. I thought of joining them, despite the cost (over $250/person), because I like sharing experiences with Dorothy. I did the woodcut and alebrije classes with her after all, and those were pretty close to only fun for me because we did them together. I would certainly have never done them alone.

Dorothy explained that while the other classes were primarily for amusement, she was taking this class as a practitioner (Dorothy is an experienced dyer/painter from her time as a costumer), and while I was welcome to attend, I would be dead to her.

That didn’t sound like much of a shared experience, especially for the money, so I bowed out. Plus, truthfully, two consecutive five hour days of hardcore science didn’t sound like nearly as much fun as writing. Which is what I did while they scienced. What they did, in addition to all that learning, was take pictures and notes. Which is how this post happened. “As told to…”

Clockwise from top left: Pomegranate rind, indigo, brazilwood, and cochineal. Cochineal comes from Oaxaca and nearby areas, and is pretty much the same whatever its origin. Indigo, on the other hand, comes from many places, and varies based on the source. For example, Oaxacan indigo is bluer than Japanese indigo, which tends towards navy. We made sure to get some of the local indigo before we left Oaxaca.

The wool had already been spun into thread, but Dorothy and Nef had to wrap 18 skeins each to prepare the wool for the different dyes they’d be creating. The pink at the top right is a sample of cochineal dyed cotton.

The mordant is used to prepare the fiber so it will accept dye. Here, the wool is being soaked in a bath so the mordant permeates the fibers. Different mordants are used for different fibers, with plant and animal fibers requiring very different mordants. For the wool, which is an animal fiber, they made a mordant that was 10% of the weight of the wool in alum, 5% of the weight of the wool in Cream of Tartar.

Elsa referred Dorothy and Nef to Maiwa for supplies, but they also have a wealth of detailed technical information on how to use different dyes.

Once the mordant has set, the fiber is ready to dye. The left pot is wild marigold, which creates a golden yellow color. The right pot is dried pomegranate rinds, which creates a green yellow color. These are two of the primary base colors used to create other colors by overdying.

Next up was creating the indigo solution. Indigo is a pigment, not a dye, the difference being that dyes are soluble and pigments aren’t. Some extra work is necessary to get wool to take the indigo.The first step involves…

Oxygen in the indigo solution reduces the pigment saturation, which is why you dip material into the indigo, rather than stirring it, which oxygenates the solution. So a key part of the solution is to use an oxygen reducing agent, such as fructose. That makes sure that the indigo is as saturated as possible. That matters because indigo is an expensive material, and you have to get the most from it.

What better source of fructose than overripe bananas? I suppose commercially produced fructose would be pretty good, because it’s a measurable, known substance. One teaspoon of fructose will deliver exactly the same dose as any other teaspoon of fructose. How much fructose is in a hand of bananas? Why is a raven like a writing desk? Imponderables. But you use what you have, and in this case, that’s bananas.

Limestone is used to create a base environment, which is necessary for the fructose to activate. Because science. The crushed limestone will be added to the indigo vat with the banana fructose & water to create the indigo solution, ready for wool.

Indigo is activated by exposure to air. You don’t leave it in longer to get a deeper color, you dip it multiple times. The wool gets dipped, the excess pigment is squeezed out (so it stays in the pot and is reusable), it’s exposed to air, which activates the color, and then it gets rinsed. It can then be dipped again to deepen the color, or overdyed in a different color to get a completely different result.

Dorothy and Nef also created cochineal and brazilwood dyes, but I think they were blinded by the chemistry by that point. No photos. But here’s the full spectrum of the two days effort, all 18 colors.

After ten hours of grinding and dye vats and whiteboard formulas, Dorothy and Nef were more dazzled than dazed. They were energized, pingponging ideas back and forth on how to put this new knowledge into use. It was a beautiful thing to behold, and I can’t wait to see what they produce.