Hi Louise, I’ve been experimenting with mordants, tannins and plants. All the plants are under the snow and the trees lost all their leaves. I did manage to dry some leaves so maybe. Can do some more tests. I wanted to ask you about Alum. I do the home made soya binder and I have aluminum acetate. I’m going to probably make a 8% wof solution but I don’t know how long to soak the fabric in the solution so it doesn’t dislodge the soya binder off the fabric. Cheers, you are going into summer time! Reut
Hi Reut, I haven’t tried this particular combination, but I think you would be find to soak the fabric for up to 1 hour. You may lose a small amount of the soy milk binder, but you’ll be gaining all the power of alum anyway. Let me know how it turns out. And good luck getting through months of snow, that sounds intense!
Hello Louise, I have been using potassium alum. Is this the same as aluminium sulfate? If so, you mention that it needs to be combined with tannin. I recently bought some tannin powder and Myrobalan from a dyer’s supplier and would like to try this combination too and see the different effects. If I apply the tannin+alum, should I apply the iron after? Many thanks, Lola
There are lots of different types of alum mordants. Potassium alum does also need to be combined with tannin. Here’s a good recipe for doing this. You don’t need to apply iron afterward, but you might like to experiment with combining alum and iron sometime as you will get different colours than either alum or iron alone.
Thanks Lori, the dye bath is eucalyptus bark with a splash of iron mordant to make the grey. Acorns are a good substitute if you can’t get eucalyptus bark.
Hi Marilyn, yes I would have put the dyestuff in the pot, covered with water, and then cooked it for at least an hour to create the dye bath, before adding the bundle in. Sometimes I let the dye bath sit overnight before cooking the bundle in it, or sometimes I add the bundle and the dyestuff at the same time. There’s no right way, but pre-cooking the dyestuff allows more of the dye to come out, creating stronger results.
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Hi Louise,
I’ve been experimenting with mordants, tannins and plants. All the plants are under the snow and the trees lost all their leaves. I did manage to dry some leaves so maybe. Can do some more tests. I wanted to ask you about Alum. I do the home made soya binder and I have aluminum acetate. I’m going to probably make a 8% wof solution but I don’t know how long to soak the fabric in the solution so it doesn’t dislodge the soya binder off the fabric.
Cheers, you are going into summer time!
Reut
Hi Reut, I haven’t tried this particular combination, but I think you would be find to soak the fabric for up to 1 hour. You may lose a small amount of the soy milk binder, but you’ll be gaining all the power of alum anyway. Let me know how it turns out. And good luck getting through months of snow, that sounds intense!
Thanks.I’ll let you know how it went.
Hello Louise,
I have been using potassium alum. Is this the same as aluminium sulfate? If so, you mention that it needs to be combined with tannin. I recently bought some tannin powder and Myrobalan from a dyer’s supplier and would like to try this combination too and see the different effects. If I apply the tannin+alum, should I apply the iron after?
Many thanks,
Lola
There are lots of different types of alum mordants. Potassium alum does also need to be combined with tannin. Here’s a good recipe for doing this. You don’t need to apply iron afterward, but you might like to experiment with combining alum and iron sometime as you will get different colours than either alum or iron alone.
This is just lovely! What is in the dye bath?
Thanks Lori, the dye bath is eucalyptus bark with a splash of iron mordant to make the grey. Acorns are a good substitute if you can’t get eucalyptus bark.
Hello. with your dye bath, did you fill half your pot with dry organic material, prior to filling with water?
Hi Marilyn, yes I would have put the dyestuff in the pot, covered with water, and then cooked it for at least an hour to create the dye bath, before adding the bundle in. Sometimes I let the dye bath sit overnight before cooking the bundle in it, or sometimes I add the bundle and the dyestuff at the same time. There’s no right way, but pre-cooking the dyestuff allows more of the dye to come out, creating stronger results.