The biggest surprise to me was when I put some already acid-dyed skeins in an indigo bath - they came out blue, not the expected green (over yellow) and purple (over red). My dye bath was a dux-redux bath, which a chemist told me, meant it contained a dye remover! So, it removed the acid dye as it laid the indigo dye on the skeins. Although I would have enjoyed those colors, I was pleased to get a nice blue on my soft squishy skeins.
One of the things to be careful about if you do grow indigo, is to ensure there is no Japanese knotweed growing in the area. They will cross-pollinate and your next crop of indigo from cross-pollination will not produce dye. I ran into this with one crop, but luckily had seeds from the previous crop still, so my next crop succeeded. Sourcing seeds can also be difficult, the source I had is no longer producing them.
Have you tried indigo? How'd it go?
The other I that came to mind was ingeo, one of the wave of manufactured fibers from different sources. Ingeo is made from corn. It's a bit squeaky with a bit of shine. I never tried it in blends, actually I never got past making sample skeins with it. I'd be curious to hear what your experience with it was/is. There's no longer any in my stash of fiber or handspun.
What's your I?
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© June 1, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/
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