Natural Jeans......................

I don't usually subscribe to these magazines, but I have a couple

of subscriptions so I can send the paper version to my 96 yr. old

mother, who doesn't have much entertainment but

watching television and reading magazines.

I thumbed through the issues and this one peeked my interest--

what?  someone is bringing  indigo back to farmers.  As a person who

worked as Education Curator on an Louisiana indigo plantation, this

article came to life for me.  

Indigo is different from all other natural dyes (apart from shellfish purple)in that it needs no mordant (a substance used to set dyes on fabrics); it is insoluble and is deposited on the fibers as microscopic particles without needing to form a chemical bond with them. The chemical properties of indigo dye remained baffling well into the 19th century. It was so mysterious and challenging to work with that, in many cultures, folklore arose around the dyeing process. In Bhutan, pregnant women were not allowed near the vat in case the unborn baby stole the blues, and women in Morocco believed the only way to deal with a particularly challenging vat was to start telling outrageous lies. All this trouble was worth the final result. Once dyed, indigo is so colorfast that it can last for centuries or even millennia.

The process from turning the leaf form into this powdery blue magical dye was laborious.

Slaves spent their time walking through the blue sludge every day turning their hands, feet and

every body part that touched the plant, blue.  Even today when you work with indigo,

you will come away with blue hands.  It is always like a magic act when you

use indigo vat to dye--

But, this is the only natural dye that will give you BLUE!

Here we have an industrious company bringing farmers together for

this venture.

They even sell their dyes to independent dyers like me.  

You like that pair of jeans you wear, then you can thank

an indigo vat!