debmcclintock

Let the mixing begin. I only wore my mask till all the powders were wetted out and not floating in the air. Now watching the heat. A watched vat does not get hot fast. Thanks to everyone that mixed before me in the February class by Elisabeth so I could ponder the process. Here is a link to her classes.

Ferrous sulfate and calcium hydroxide measured out. Got an idea of dry volume and water needed to dissolve.

Pasted indigo gets one more stir to suspend pigment in the water. I left it overnight to let lumps soften & settle.

Vessels have heated water and ingredients added to dissolve

Mental note, this vat has an indent on the bottom I need to stir into and around. Wish I had measured the width before I started dumping ingredients into the vat. There is always an “if only”.

And splat! I wish I could set up neat & tidy but I always find a way to drip with large vats.

Pasting the leftover lumps. This is washed & dried pigment from my large Fructose vat. I wash my old fructose paste with 9% vinegar to remove the calcium carbonate and drain thru filters. Solely for the purpose of removing sludge volume and storage. We will find out how the pigment works after washing on a large scale.

My plan is to find out if same process works for “iron sludge”. I do NOT know if this process works for iron vat sludge or the chemical impact, yet. I need to create some iron sludge. Hence this vat is starting up. The Sapa indigo dyers use their pigment season to season in a wood ash vat. I decided to try using vinegar to reduce the calcium in a sludge reduction effort and clean up for use.

Old lady way of moving water from point A to point B

Nice & soupy, time to stir.

Stirring & stirring

Now I heat & wait for reduction. My sticks that support my heater are sitting on the handle indents within the bucket. No holes were made. I suppose holes would be safer.  To me, if the sticks were left in place in the holes not much heat would escape. More importantly, I would be concerned with disturbing the structural integrity of the bucket sides by putting holes into the plastic. I am leaning towards putting holes or screw eyes in sticks and hold sticks by tying the handle. Right now I am still developing a relationship with my vat configuration. I’ll improve later.

Tags: Indigo, record keeping, vat

Monday was all about moving water, pasting indigo and prepping other ingredients. For me it is getting an idea of how many prep vessels one needs to dissolve everything properly.  Earlier this month I tested temperatures on my outside dye patio in my new 100 liter vat with and without heat. I captured the temperature range info for future reference.

The vat is shaded from sun so I wanted to get an idea of the temperature range here in very early spring in the Texas Hill country. I measured the initial 100 liters to measure and see water depth for the proper water volume.  Plus to see if I had any vessel leaks. Now time to move water and prep the ingredients to mix. 

Now time to move water and prep the ingredients to mix. My husband and a good friend decided I needed a hoist to lift heavy loads a couple of years back.  I thank them mentally every time I use it to avoid stressing old back & arm surgeries. This time I combined using the hoist with my sump pump and quickly moved water out of the vat into various containers to start dissolving ingredients.  

Next I  pasted my indigo, a technique taught by Aboubakar Fofar at a master’s class at Botanical Colors.  Think pudding consistency, you paste your indigo to the consistency of pudding, smoothly suspending your pigment in water. I had been working on breaking down washed pigment to powder from my large fructose vat. This pigment has hardened over the winter after vinegar washing to remove excess calcium carbonate. I had to spend some quality time with my mortar and pestle grinding the indigo to powder.

Setting that paste aside I measured out my ferrous sulfate (iron) to see the quantity involved for start up and measured out additional iron for sharpening the vat further down the timeline. I usually don’t use iron in such a large amount so had no sense of the volume. It will be interesting to see how it dissolves. 

My calcium hydroxide is in the tidy package of Ms Wages pickling lime and doesn’t need additional processing. 

So bearing in mind I am working with a target volume of 100 liters I have my water set aside, the ingredients measured out and am ready to put it all together.

Tags: Indigo, record keeping, vat