Dyeing with Woad and Stale Urine

Our terrible experience with moths last year resulted in having to track down every single bit of wool fibre in the house, and either boiling it, freezing it, treating it with chemicals, throwing it out, or in some cases doing all four. After treatment I had to put all wool in sealed bags with moth killing papers inside. This as you can imagine has put my spinning and weaving on the back burner for now, not just because I am trying to protect what is left, or that I had no time to spin while dealing with the moths, but also because after we had dealt with the moths we had to move out of the house to have the underfloor heating replaced! We had quite a traumatic year last year!



Rather than put everything in storage and live in rented accommodation which would have been very expensive, and we only just had enough money to replace the heating pipes, we decide to hire a portacabin to live in, and a shipping container to put all our belongings in. Ram and I had no problem fitting all that we needed to live for three months in the portacabin. All Ram needs is his computer, the TV and hard disk recorder, and someone to put a bit of food on his plate. A bed is helpful, and that fitted in perfectly to the cabin, but the one thing that it didn't have was a toilet.




Luckily I had an old commode chair that I rescued from someone who was about to take it to the tip, and we had a potty that fitted the hole perfectly. Although we could use the toilets in the house as we had given instructions to the builder and plumber that one toilet had to be working at all times, when it was raining, or at night, or even indeed when the men were working in the bathroom area, it was easier to pee in the potty, and dump it in a bucket outside.

Then came the question, what do we do with a bucket of wee! The first thing that came to mind was the compost bin. Lots of people urinate in their compost heaps, not because they have come back from the pub drunk and their wives won't let them in the house, but because it helps make better compost.


However, we also knew from watching Tony Robinson in The Worst Jobs in History that urine was used in the dye industry. Unfortunately I had foolishly packed away my favourite dyeing book, A Dyer's Manual by Jill Goodwin. Luckily I was able to get hold of her daughter and she told me what we needed to do. It is very similar to the way we did things with the chemical method, but instead of using sodium hydrosulphite we added bran and stale fermented urine to a bucket along with the water containing the woad and washing soda.

We then put the lid on and left it in the sun to ferment. After a few weeks, we decided to check on it and see if it worked:





We aired it that day, and found out just how pungent the smell really was! We had to stuff paper up our noses, and stand up wind. Strangely, the chickens seemed attracted to it though, and every time we opened the bucket they were there trying to stick their heads in! I had to wear my old lab coat and nose plugs as the smell even penetrated clothing.

After the initial few times, we had a spell of very wet and windy weather, and then we had the move back into the house. It bucket got left at the bottom of the garden, as no one really wanted to air the wool again. Eventually I took it out and left it in the rain and sun for a couple of weeks until the smell subsided enough that I could bring it inside to wash it properly. Although it started out being quite blue, because it got soaked for a long time in the bucket without airing it, it lost its colour.


The results were spectacular, not in colour, but as a learning experience, it is one that no one will forget in a hurry!