Woad at last

Finally a success story with the woad plants, and this was their second picking....I started with three quarters of a gallon jar packed with leaves and poured boiling water over them ...then followed the recipe it Rita Buchanan's book which seemed clear and simple....famous last words...then after soaking the leaves for an hour, I squeezed them out and saved them. At this point the water did not look hopeful , very pale, and distant memories, or "second cuttings being inferior" kept surfacing....but perseverence furthers, and I kept going...added 1 tablespoon of ammonia, being out of washing soda, and then began to pour it back and forth between two buckets, as soon as I added the ammonia, things began to darken and look up, and the pouring resulted in bluish green foam, now things were really looking up...so then added the 1 Tablespoon of thiox, and let it be in 100-120 degreen fahrenheit water bath, for l hour, and the above results happened, it turned this light yellow, actually a bit more yellow than the photo, I had added one fifty gram skein of 50/50 silk merino, and l skein of brushed mohair....then left them for 20 minutes. The upper right is after one dip, and then let air for 20 minutes and back in for twenty which are the ones on the left....

so there we have it ...well almost, as in the meantime, I had boiled the left over leaves of woad, and added one skein of mohair to the bath, and got a lovely pale rose, so then I just added more to the bath, and put the leaves in a nylon bag with the next ones, so see if I can get even more rosy a color...I am almost more fond of the pinks than the blue...personal preference, but so fun to be getting blue from the garden, and from a second cutting...yippppeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!