Notice: It is important not to heat indigo too high. 120' to 130' F is considered ideal and most recipes say it will be ruined if it goes over 140' F. I once let it get too hot, and it still worked, but nonetheless I am quite careful about this temperature.

Natural indigo is very hard and needs to be well dissolved before using it for dyeing. It can be soaked overnight in a cup of hot water and blended in a blender with the soaking water. Strain it through cheesecloth and for maximum color blend the residue again with water in a blender. Restrain and scrape the residue back into the blender. This can be done several times until there is almost no residue left. An alternative way to dissolve the indigo is to put the dry Natural indigo into an electric coffee grinder and pulverize it. It can then be cooked and strained like other dyes.

Place the strained indigo into a large pot of water. In a separate jar dissolve the Soda Ash in some water. Add the Soda Ash solution to the indigo and stir. Shake in half of the Dharma's Dyehouse Color Remover and stir gently. Heat to 120' to 130' F, stirring very gently. The liquid should appear yellow or yellow-green and may even look rather scummy and be reminiscent of the witch's cauldron. That's fine. Let it stand for 20 minutes.

If the water appears blue, that means too much oxygen has entered and more Dharma's Dyehouse Color Remover needs to be sprinkled over it and gently stirred. To get the best tones from the indigo pot one tries to avoid letting too much oxygen into the pot. This means working much more slowly and gently than with other colors. The wet fabric can be compressed into a ball, lowered in gently and then allowed to expand. Stir gently. The first silk fabrics usually need to be immersed only for a couple of minutes to absorb the maximum color while later fabrics may stay in for 5 to 10 minutes.

When the fabric is removed from the dye pot, it should be fist look yellow-green and it will turn blue when meeting oxygen in the air. For an even dye result, I find it best to do the indigo-dyeing outdoors with another person. We then remove the cloth and stretch it tautly between us, vertically so the excess dye runs over the fabric. It can be tipped back and forth so that the dye runs in all directions. This process is not absolutely necessary, but without it I usually get a more uneven dye result, and the cloth tends to look like a cloudy sky with lighter and darker areas of blue. After a few minutes exposure to the air the cloth has finished turning blue and excess dye can be rinsed off. If it is very uneven, you can also re-dye it at this point, which helps even out the color.