The beautiful rich blues of Indigo dye come from the leaves of the plant. Some homesteaders cultivate a “dye garden” just to have enough beautiful plants, herbs, and weeds on hand to dye the wool they sheer from their sheep. If I had the ability to make my own cloth I would. A large percentage of indigo dye produced today, several thousand tonnes each year, is synthetic. However, once scientists discovered that they could produce dye pigments in a laboratory that would stand up to washing, were quicker to make and could be easily transferred to fibers, creating dyes from plants became somewhat of a lost art. Green is everywhere in the plant world. It can also stain your furniture and light-colored clothing. But getting the blue dye from the indigo plant was not easy or quick. The dye can be extracted from several plants, but historically the indigo plant was the most commonly used because it is was more widely available. If you live in an area where drought is an issue, neutralized water can be saved and reused to ferment another round of fresh indigo, or for making indigo dye vats (if you are going to make an indigo vat out of it, there is no need to neutralize the water--it is already the perfect pH!) Use a glass jar, enamel or stainless steel pot. When it leaves behind a blue stain it is ready to harvest and be used in your dye vat! SHARE PIN EMAIL. Natural indigo powder is so dark, it is kind of like that impossible shade where you can't tell if it's black or really dark navy. Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from the leaves of certain plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Learn how to make different hues of green dye to color fabric and yarn fibers from leaves, bark, and vegetables. Indigo is a lovely flowering plant which produces purple or pink buds. It belongs to the legume family and over three hundred species have been identified. The beautiful rich blues of Indigo dye come from the leaves of the plant . Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color (see indigo). Indigo Plant The Blue and the Beautiful. Indigo, unlike many other types of dye, is not water soluble but, it … Colours she produces with indigo plant and mineral combinations selection serves as her curriculum vitae. Let’s dive into How To Make Indigo Dye from Plant ?. button button The Spruce Crafts. Add a tiny bit of water just enough to wet the indigo and create a paste. For example, the indigo dye used in denim blue jeans can end up rubbing off, or crocking, and giving you blue-tinted legs. Stir very gently to avoid introducing oxygen and … Gently add about half your stock solution of indigo dye to the vat. Any white precipitate in the stock solution may contain undissolved indigo, which won't help your dye in the vat, so avoid disturbing this layer if it has formed.