Desert Indigo(Amorpha Fruticosa) Experiment
(Image 1.A- Pounded Flowers on paper towel)
(Image 1.B- Hot extraction)
(Image 1.C Cold extraction)
Hello All!
I wanted to catalog some experimentation with the Amorpha Fruticosa.
I've seen limited documentation regarding this particular dye, and even ethnobotanical information is scarce.
This is not a large batch dye, nor am I even versed in dye making. I am a food/medicinal forager primarily.
With that being said;
In this forum, there is about a two year old post explaining someone's own experiment with their plant. And I, like them, treated Desert Indigo just like True indigo, I harvested the leaves and did a hot extraction with an alkaline agent, I aerated it, the whole shebang. It did indeed yield a dye, it was a beautiful honey color, but it wasn't indigo by any means.
Some brilliant minds suggested I use the flowers instead of the leaves, this yielded much more promising results.
1.A I did a flower pounded method with a hammer which yielded a rich, royal violet shade. It was very pretty and I was cautiously optimistic.
1.B Hot extraction produced also a rich, and vivid shade that I can only describe as a malevolent bog hag green, with hints of purple mixed in. I dipped some wool in, it turned gray with tints of green.
1.C I left some wet flowers on a napkin to see. This method was most promising and produced a true indigo reminiscent of denim.
The flowers can be used for some interesting dye. If dye was my thing, I'd love to tamper around more with potential cold extraction.
I hope this proves helpful.