Kathy Hattori, Author at Botanical Colors

Mordant Monday: Tannin Workshop Review

Mordanted fat quarters in iron, marigold, indigo, marigold+indigo, logwood, logwood+ indigo, logwood + marigold and logwood + marigold+ indigo. Both Cara and I taught new online workshops about tannins and natural dyes this month. Cara introduced Tannin Grayscale, a fascinating look into using iron and tannin to create a rich range of deep and moody neutrals. I had envisioned that this would be a workshop on gray, gray and more gray, but the surprise was that her techniques create some beautifully saturated shades. My workshop was Tannin Rainbow, where I concentrated on combining different tannin mordanted fabrics with natural dye … Read more

RSVP for BOTANICAL COLORS’ COMMUNITY GATHERING

Join us this week, January 24, 9am PT/Noon ET for our first ever Community Gathering. We kick off our event with the intention of welcoming you into a textile community to provide encouragement, listening and connection. We are here for each other and as act of determination and hope. To participate, click the link to RSVP and Zoom will send you the login information. Can’t wait to see you all! RSVP HERE

A Humble, Ingenious Leaf Mordant: Symplocos

The plant world contains species that draw alum from the soil and store them in their tissue – they’re referred to as alum accumulators or hyper accumulators. There’s a plant species called symplocos that is an alum accumulator and contains enough alum to be used as a plant-based mordant. We carry symplocos and are happy to have a new shipment arriving this week, so it’s a good time to review this mordant alternative with a great backstory. The Story of Symplocos In 2005 and 2006, The Bebali Foundation (a partner enterprise to Threads of Life that focuses on sustainable economic … Read more

Mordant Monday: Dyeing without a mordant

This Mordant Monday, I want to share a little bit about my pokeberry dye adventure this past week. Those of you who know me know that I was trained to mordant nearly everything (exception: indigo). Not mordanting something that needs a mordant usually elicits a shocked, silent, but oh-so-judgey raised eyebrow, so this post is a stretch for me. The interesting thing about pokeberries is that it’s possible to get a brilliant color by using wool yarn and white vinegar. No alum mordant is used in this technique. And vinegar is not normally considered a mordant. So here we are. … Read more

Mordant Monday: Foraging Instead

Today I was supposed to write about mordanting, but I had a foraging date to scout out potential sites for our upcoming workshop with Julie Beeler, so I headed out this morning to get a sense of what we might discover during our workshop. I am a mushroom foraging novice, and will stare for a long time at the forest floor and see absolutely nothing. I simply don’t have the eyes yet to distinguish between a brown leaf and a bolete. But to my surprise, there were some mushrooms that give color that very happily announced their presence right in … Read more

More Mordant Experiments

I’m obsessed with using tannin and aluminum sulfate to create different color bases for both natural dyes and indigo. What I love about this technique is that this is a great mordant option and it’s a lot of fun to see the colors develop and take on the subtle differences between the different tannin bases. This time, we’re working with a lightweight, pre-mordanted, organic cotton suitable for stitching and quilting. We mordanted 4 fat quarters, each with a different tannin, and then tried a few dye experiments using Marigold Mix, Madder extract and Indigo. Start with our Mordanted Fat quarter … Read more

Mordant Monday: Middle Mordant Magic

In this week’s Mordant Monday, we discuss Middle Mordant. Middle Mordant is a technique that I learned about from The Art and Science of Natural Dyes. It’s considered to be a Japanese technique and is a simple way to create rich color on silk. Middle mordant uses room temperature dye baths and you can repeat the process until the fabric is the color you want. The purpose of middle mordant is to deepen the depth of shade and most of the examples I’ve seen use silk fabric and alum mordant. There are somewhat similar techniques that old dye books discuss, … Read more

Mordant Monday: Sneak peek of a new product

Mordanted Sashiko Thread with Different Tannin Options! Now you have the convenience of using tannins and a pre-mordanted thread to create your own color palettes and who doesn’t love that? Pictured from Left to Right: Cutch and Alum mordant, Sumac and Alum mordant, Gallo-Tannin and Alum mordant, and PFD, unmordanted Sashiko Threads We’ve been busy adding to our very popular mordanted product line, and will be offering mordanted Sashiko threads using three different mordant variables. The light brown color is Cutch, a light brown tannin, the yellow is Sumac, a yellow-based tannin, the light cream is Gallo-Tannin, a “clear” tannin, … Read more

Mordant Monday: brat

Using weld and indigo, you can get awfully close to this new, exciting color! This is the basic recipe Start with a mordanted cotton bandana, soak it in warm water for 30 minutes to thoroughly wet it out, and dip in a very light indigo vat. You want to lightest, sky blue shade. Let it oxidize and rinse well. Next, measure 8% weld extract, 2% calcium carbonate and 2% soda ash. If you want to know the dry weight, the bandana is about 34 grams. Carefully dissolve and mix the ingredients together. Add the dye mix to a dye pot … Read more

Mordant Monday: Q&A

Mordant Monday this week is all about questions: some are mordanting questions and others are the victims of spellcheck. I changed my mind How do I change a mordant after the fact? I have some wool and cotton fabrics with alum on them but I really want to have them mordanted with iron instead. Can I remove the alum and start with an iron base? Answer: Alum mordants are very durable and long-lasting bonds, and while there are a few substances that can weaken or damage them, using them would probably also damage the fabric and we don’t recommend this … Read more