Woad Second Harvest!

 My woad plants continued to grow putting on some more fresh leaves, so it was the perfect opportunity to see if I could extract the blue pigment to be able to store some woad powder for the winter.
After steeping the leaves, the small harvest was removed. With the soda ash added I then whisked the dye liquid and allowed it to settle for a few hours.

 The "blue liquid magic" started to settle out, so it was just a matter of bit by bit pouring away the top water, letting it settle a little more and repeating. This task was much easier to achieve by filling lots of old jam jars so as I could see the blue pigment fall to the bottom.
I then cleaned and washed the pigment by topping up each jar with fresh water a few times.

 To dry the pigment to produce a powder I poured the concentrate onto a plate covered in cling film and left it in a warm place to slowly dry out.
The pigment dried in flakes and was delicately scrapped off the cling film into a dry storage jar.

As you can imagine I'm absolutely thrilled at being able to make my very own woad powder!!

Even if it is only a small amount from just a small handful of leaves, this year's harvest has been brilliant!

I have another jar with the pigment left in suspension. I may decide to dry this out or again use it to experiment with to compare my home grown, home made 

Woad Powder and Woad Suspension.