This summer the North Peace Spinners and Weavers held a dyeing weekend at Mary's cabin on Charlie Lake. We dyed with brazil wood, avocado, mixed flowers, indigo, walnut, goldenrod, pineapple weed, oak twigs, dyers' camomile and weld.
Cotton premordanted with tea, tie dyed in walnut husk dye.
Mary and Debbie
Indigo dyed wool
Sheryl and Granddaughter Emily
black hollyhock
Dyers' camomile.
Rene and Jane
Some of us camped over the 3 days.
Rhya starting a new project.
Dyeing is a serious business. Chemical dyes were used for special projects.
Avocado
Emily is an enthusiastic dyer.
Marjo relaxing on Mary's deck.
Laura Lee, our Fort St. John area rep.
Leslie, showing one of her pottery bowls and some of the ceramic buttons made by members of the North Peace Spinners and Weavers. Leslie facilitated the button making workshop. She is a gifted potter and a fibre artist. She is moving away this month and we have greatly appreciated all of her contributions to our Fort St. John guild. We shall miss her.
Very productive dyeing days.
Cheryl and Alex discussing the indigo dyeing process.
Cheryl's work with the indigo dye pot.
Jill and Emily starting to dye skeins of wool.
Indigo dyed wool, cotton and silk.
What may seem like making a mess usually turns out beautifully.
Alex and our tree of yarns.
Cotton mordanted with tea and dyed with natural dyes.
Tapestry yarn over dyed with natural dyes. We learned that tapestry yarns are not necessarily rinsed well after the commercial dye process, presumably as it is assumed that they will never be washed. There was a lot of fugitive dye in the bright orange and yellow yarn which over dyed the rest of the yarns in the alum mordant bath. With foresight these yarns were kept separate in their own alum bath and did not affect other yarns in the dye process.
This is one of the articles found in the Peace Country Spinners' and Weavers' newsletter Threads Along the Peace, received upon becoming a member of PCSW. Marjo provided pictures to go with this article which can be seen in the newsletter.
Tell
me about… Mordants –
Marjo Wheat
Why do we need mordants when we want to dye something? How do we use them and can we do without
them? Here are some answers to these
questions.
A mordant is a chemical that helps dyes stay in a
fibre. The term, mordant, is from the
French word, modre, which means to
bite. So mordants make the dye bite into
the fibre. In Casselman’s book she says:
Mordants are simply metallic or mineral
salts which, when added to the dye bath, enhance, intensify, or change the
colour of the dye bath and make the resulting shade more fast to light and
washing. There are a number of chemicals that can be used as mordants.
Some include alum (aluminum ammonium sulphate or household
alum, and aluminum potassium sulphate, a more poisonous relative), ammonia,
urine, vinegar (acetic acid), chrome (potassium dichromate), iron (ferrous
phosphate), and tin (stannous chloride).
Of these, household alum is the safest to use although it does not
produce the same shades as its poisonous cousin. Vinegar is also often used if colours tend to
run in the wash to try to avoid this happening, but it is not a strong mordant.
Urine (human and animal) has been used through antiquity as a mordant which has
always been available. It also improves with aging and was collected from
chamber pots in the past and kept in a barrel until the right amount of
‘ripeness’.
Other mordants used in the 18th and 19th
centuries include wood ashes, blood, lye, tree galls, and clay. Fresh twigs of the Sumac can also be used as
a mordant.
All mordants should be handled with care. Always wear a mask and gloves when handling
chemicals. Keep exposure to ammonia,
chrome and tin to an absolute minimum, as they are very poisonous. All tools used for dyeing should be kept only
for dyeing, and whenever possible, dye outdoors on heating sources also used only
for dyeing. Portable propane stoves are
very useful for this.
There is no one mordant that is superior to others, each
works in a different way and will affect the textile being dyed in a different
way. There are four main ways that
mordanting can be done, by pre-mordanting, by simultaneous mordanting, by using
the pot as mordant, and “saddening” or “blooming”. In the last one, dyed fibres are treated after
dyeing to change the effect of the dye, or the colour of the dyed fibre. I will
give a brief summary of the first two methods:
1. Pre-mordanting
– or treating the fibre with mordant before dyeing. For this method, dissolve the mordant in 1
liter of boiling water, stir well, and then add this mixture to at least 4
gallons (18 liters) of warm water. Stir
well, then add up to one pound of thoroughly wetted, skeined yarn. If dyeing fleece, put it in a mesh bag. Cover the bath, and then heat it until 200⁰F,
a bare simmer. Process for 1 to 1.5
hours, and let cool. The fibre should be
rinsed and dried, or used immediately in a dye bath.
2. Simultaneous
mordanting – This is when the mordant and dye are in the same bath. If using dye plants, cook it out, then strain
out the plant material. Dissolve the
mordant in boiling water, then add it to the dye bath. Stir well. Put in the thoroughly wetted fibre which has
been in water the same temperature as the dye bath. Cover the dye bath, and raise the temperature
to 200⁰f and keep it there for an hour. Then
remove the fibre, rinse and dry.
Some dye materials don’t need a mordant and will provide a
fast dye without other added chemicals. Some
lichens are in this category and can provide a whole other article on dyeing. Happy dyeing!
For this article, I used:
Karen Leigh Casselman, Craft
of the Dyer. + Rita Buchanan, A
Weaver’s Garden.
Peace Country Spinners and Weavers activities:
- September 10-12, 2016 Lake Saskatoon, Peace Country Spinners' and Weavers' workshop, Saori Weaving. www.saltspringweaving.com
Amigurumi Crochet workshop.
Remember to find Peace Country Spinners and Weavers on Facebook and become a friend.
For more information contact peacecountrysw@gmail.com
Happy Harvesting! Happy Spinning and Weaving!
