Rainbow Indigo

It is Thursday Summer School again hostessed by the incredible Jenny. (jennymatlock.blogspot.com) This weeks color of the rainbow is Indigo....The shade of the darkest night and Levi 501's. Did I ever mention that I was a weird child? Well, I was...a bookworm with a very active imagination. It was the 70's and I loved to read survival type books like "My side of the mountain." I knew I could live off the land if the need arose. I was schooled and ready. Remember Euell Gibbons from the Grape Nut commercials? By gosh, if he could eat a pine tree then so could I. So what if it tasted like a pine tree, it was good for you...










So there I was the ten year old naturalist...Green before my time. Around the time I got my first pair of 501's, I read something about dyeing with indigo. I had never seen an indigo plant but being my creative self I decided this dyeing thing would be a snap....My friend and I spent several days gathering Salal berries...They are indigo, (well blue really) and they have a lot of seeds and grow everywhere in Oregon. The only reason we were able to stockpile so many was because they aren't the greatest berries to eat.











Of course, I did eat a few just so I knew what they tasted like in case I had to survive or something....
We got some old t shirts and a white ceramic bowl and a bucket...We took off our shoes and stomped the grapes, I mean berries....We made an unbelievable mess. It was hard, satisfying work and the only thing we dyed was ourselves, our clothes and my moms favorite formerly white ceramic bowl.








All I had to show for it was a sore bottom and another adventure. Like all my adventures, it was worth it.

I will tell you all about dandelion tea and the time I almost drowned myself trying to get cat tail tubers to roast another time.......