Good morning, Gentle Reader

 

Unlike in Storyteller I will not be embellishing our tale of today's adventure.

I had my first two sets of guests today (not counting when Brooke and Susan dropped me off the first afternoon).  Susan, Brooke, Zoe, Natsuki, and I attempted indigo dyeing with fresh indigo leaves from Susan's garden.  That meant I had to clean my apartment to make it presentable.  As I finished that, there was a ring at the door, about an hour and a half earlier than I expected anyone.  It was two of my students.  It turns out I forgot I told them we'd meet to chat today.  I guess when they asked at the office they were told I was here.  So, they stopped by.  It was a very nice, but rather embarrassing, surprise.  We talked for an hour or so.  The apartment was very large to them.  I gave them a tour.  The two back bedrooms are not being used by me, so I don't go in them.  Even the space I do occupy is very large, though.  When they saw the Wii they asked "You really do play video games?"  I had told them in class I did, but I suppose they didn't believe me.  Then they saw the copy of Deadpool I brought to watch in the hotel.  "You watch Marvel movies, too?"  It's almost like they think I'm not honest.  Hopefully they will gossip and word will get out that I am basically who I claim to be.

After that, Susan showed up.  Then Natsuki.  It was our first time meeting, so I gave her a tour as well.  She knew the place would be large.  Her main comments were "Isn't the bed a little small for you?" and "The shower is very big."  A little later Brooke and Zoe showed up.  Here are the four ladies who worked (and put up) with me.

 

 From left to right there is Susan, Brooke, Zoe, and Natsuki.  We had lunch before this picture.  Even earlier, I brought the indigo plants to the apartment.  Here they are.

We were barely able to get 200 grams of leaves from that.  We then had to blend them with some water and "gently heat to 60 C over 30 minutes, stirring constantly.  That was the phase we were at in the picture above.  This is what the stuff looks like mid-heating.

The blue foam was right, but the green was expected to be more yellow.  From what I can gather based on the process, the blue comes from oxidation of some chemical in the plant.  Normally the leaves are dried then fermented.  The fermented liquid is used as the dye.  We followed a fresh leaf recipe.  I'm not sure we'll end up with blue, though.  My fingernails turned blue, as did the spoon we were using to stir the stuff.  The same goes for the plastic gloves we wore to try to prevent getting our hands dyed.  Everything was blue except for what we were after.

Natsuki had to leave before we could actually dunk anything in the liquid.  We soaked white cotton masks in the dye for 5 minutes, then exposed to air for 5 minutes, then back in the dye for 5 minutes, then air, dye once more, now let air dry.  Here we are with the semi-finished products.  I'll post a picture of my mask once it is fully dry.

 It was nice having company over.  On the house hunting shows people are always on about "space for entertaining," and I never understood that.  I still don't, for the most part.  However, it was nice to have room for people to sit and talk and be guests.  I'm very glad I was able to try this.

Thank you very much, ladies.