Woad-homemade dye

Made my first batch of woad today. So to recap on the woad experiment:

Wanted to harvest woad this week as it is eradication week for this noxious weed known as Dyer's woad or Marlahans Mustard here in my county. I found a lovely patch blooming and I was immediately able to distinguish the difference between Marlahans and common mustard.

I shredded 3 lbs of leaves which were steeped for ten minutes in 8 qts of water at 198 degrees Fahrenheit. I then lowered the temp to below 50 and since I could not obtain soda ash anywhere locally I used one half gallon of sudsy ammonia to raise the ph to 9.

It worked but big mistake. It did turn the required dark green but on aerating with an electric whisk I spent tons of time removing foam- foam that never did turn any color but white. I was concerned this would be dye failure but allowing the dye to settle, siphoning off green water and replacing with fresh repeatedly I saw the sediment was indeed navy blue!

I sampled a small piece of angora fiber in the dye which immediately turned deep blue. I continued siphoning until I had only sediment which yielded little less than a qt of dye. I will do another batch next weekend after I get some soda ash in the mail.