Fructos Indigo Vat-- Day #1

Today Indira and I began the first of our natural dye natural vat testing. We decided that, as we'd collected 3 versions of Fructose Vat Indigo Dye recipe, it was a good place to start.

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The Recipe:

1kg over-ripe fruit
10g finely crushed indigo
food grade slaked lime or calx
water

pH strips
Strainer
Stove and small pot
Mortar and pestle
Gallon bucket


This is aprox what we will be doing: Crush the indigo finely, then hydrate it by crushing again with a small quantity of water in order to get a fluid paste. Boil your over-ripe fruit in water for 10-15 min, in order to extract both sugars and flavonoïds, then in this liquid add your indigo (strain as you do) + one full spoon of lime or calx and stir gently-- the coppery surface appears, then some blue bubbles, while the liquid turns yellow/green. At that step you may try a few samples, but if you wait for a couple of hours, the vat is stronger, even the day after.

The main difficulty is to keep this vat for a long time. Indeed it is really possible, but at this step, the control of the pH and some observations must be done before each dye.

This point takes time and some days for an efficient course. This kind of vats is very appropriate for dyeing protein fibers, but even cellulosic fibers can be dyed in it, it is a question of pH again. Remember that the reduction is issued of the oxidation of sugars. During this transformation, the sugar is transformed in lactic acid, so the pH goes down, so you will need to add some more lime from time to time to correct the pH."
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We began by collecting the ingredients necessary... A trip to the street of fruit vendors in Santiago for over-ripe fruit (apples, strawberries, papaya, and pineapples for the first tests). They were all like "what?" but gave it to us anyway. Then off to a magical cooking store for a strainer and a cooking thermometer. Of course we forgot the mortar and pestle, so we have to go back tomorrow. While we were there I found a muffin tin and a thermos for tea (hellz yes muffins!)

On our wandering path we found lunch (roasted oca and plantain and sweet potato, and also bruschetta and chocolate filled croissants and mini avocados) which we took back to the Center with us and feasted upon. We also found a miscellaneous paper items shop that specialized in platen printed receipts and wedding cards. THERE WERE TWO PLATEN PRESSES RUNNING IN THE BACK OF THIS SHOP!!! I was more than excited. They were in beautiful condition and it looked like there might even be a few type cases back there.... Found a store that has every type of paper I've encountered and then some (I'm totally going back there, screw the art stores that only carry cheap watercolor paper).

After lunch, we began the cooking of the fruit in the little kitchen in the back of the center. We donned gloves and boiled water and weighed out our dead fruit. I was given the pleasant job of pulling the green tops off the dead&squishy strawberries before they went into the pot. Indira prepped the apples, and while we waited for these to cook, I got to scoop seeds from the really dead papaya and chop it roughly. Once a pot was done, it was poured through the strainer and the guts were pressed until they leeched no more moisture. At the end of the day, we have 3 buckets with fruit sugar juices in them. Tomorrow we'll be dividing these into 6 buckets as we're testing two types of indigo, adding the lime, and dividing and weighing out yarn while we wait for the buckets to grow stronger.

On my way home I stopped at the Mercado de Wanchaqu and bought veggies, however, I also found a person there who sells 100% Cotton yarn (string), so sounds like we're headed there tomorrow as well, because we've currently got alpaca and sheep but no cotton. It's really crazy how hard it is to get 100% cotton anything here, even just plain muslin broadcloth! My usual "I'll just order it from Webs" doesn't work here though so we have to get creative.

And now my apology: I'm sorry I have no pictures of icky dead fruit for you, I'll definitely try harder tomorrow....