The call for woad growers came from the same people who organized the blanket project. They are now working on more ideas for things to do with local wool, and one of them is dyeing it with locally grown woad.
I won’t pretend to know everything there is to know about woad. In fact, I knew very little about it before I became involved in this project.
From the newsletter, I learnt that for centuries, wool was dyed blue with woad in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. In the 18th century, Frisian wool comber Eise Eisinga won international awards for his beautiful blue wool. In his spare time, Eise built a planetarium that is now a museum (I knew that, I’ve been to it and it’s great!). The museum still owns his original dye recipes, including one for dyeing with woad.
The seeds themselves vary in colour from pale yellow and green to a deep purplish blue.