Woad - From seeds to scarf

I bought some woad seeds online. When I mentioned to my husband that I wanted to grow woad he asked why. But then when he heard that woad may have been used to paint the Picts faces blue in battle he thought it was a pretty cool idea to grow it.

Ten seeds geminated and grew to these ten plants. One was rather small, so I harvested leaves from just nine of them.

Three bags full.

And here they are torn into smallish pieces.

Then on to a simmer.

I got so excited when the foam turned BLUE!

I had to announce it to the household and get my husband to take a look. So fun getting the alchemy right. And such a pretty color.

The indigotin is settling down to the bottom. I poured off the top waste water and filled with clear water multiple times to get a purer bit of the indigotin.

Then poured it onto a plate lined in plastic wrap and let it dry.

This is what I ended up with. Not a lot. But should be enough to dye a few things. I'll do a second harvest of more leaves soon, so this should double.

Since the waste water still had some dye stuffs suspended, I dyed a small cobweb scarf. I didn't have any ph strips, so it dyed purple instead of blue (too acidic). But still a pretty color.