Is retting complete? And Blogspot won't let me complete the post with photos of the flax's woad weeds dyeing mauve (instead of the usual turquoise)

Blogspot still in snit mode about me writing before posting a photo (and still won't let me correct typos without deleting back to the mistake, so appologies in advance), so here's photo of my retted (?) flax so far.

It seems to be turning the golden colour you associate with water retted plax, but the centre of the bundles are still damp and need further drying, I think. The golden flax is still pliable, and I can see the need for braking and scutching if this really is the end point of the retting process. It bends and isn't at all brittle.

Sub heading (because I can't make the bold or underline functions work either!): Why Conservative Voters Don't Make Good Natural Dyers.

I used the woad plants that were growing as weeds in my flax plot yesterday. Did my usual successful woad method, except that I didn't remove the roots from the plants (too lazy). Instead of my usual lovely turquoise blue colour, the first dips produced this.....