I was asked to dye some white wool gloves with indigo. For the first attempt, I used organic indigo vats. The result was a bit streaky – a bit of a denim look. The requester wanted a bit more even end result. The second attempt I scoured the gloves with a wool wash (I also did this with the first attempt), mordanted the gloves with 10% alum, and dyed them. One set, the lighter pair were dyed with Botanical Colors liquid indigo – at 25.5%. I tried it with lower % but they were pretty light. The second set was dyed with a thio indigo vat (two dips). Hide glue was added to this vat. In the latter case I dipped the gloves in water to knock off the excess indigo between dips. In both cases the results was more even than the first attempt.
Organic vat
Liquid indigo - saxon blue
The line is a shadow on the thio vat gloves.
Gloves in thio, liquid indigo, and organic vats.
