Kathy Hattori, Author at Botanical Colors

Mordant Monday: Overdyeing: Indigo First, or Indigo Second?

Indigo first, or indigo second? We get mordant questions all the time at Botanical Colors so why not create Mordant Monday??? Got mordanting questions? Email [email protected] YOU ASKED: Do you always dye indigo first before overdyeing with another color? Does it make any difference? KATHY ANSWERED: When I was starting out, I was advised to dye with indigo first, rinse, mordant my fabric, and then dye with a mordant color second in order to create any type of compound color when indigo is involved. We largely agree with this as most of our production colors start with an indigo shade … Read more

Mordant Monday: Does Indigo Damage Mordants

We get mordant questions all the time at Botanical Colors so why not create Mordant Monday??? Got mordanting questions? Email [email protected] 2 light indigo dips on mordanted silk before immersing in exhaust dye baths to make pastels YOU ASKED: My question involves the processes of indigo dyeing when combined with other plant dyes that have been mordanted with aluminum acetate. My understanding is that citric acid discharges the mordant and also neutralizes the alkalinity of indigo as a last step in finishing indigo dyed cloth. How would you go about neutralizing indigo without discharging mordant? For some processes, I am … Read more

Mordant Monday: What is Dunging?

Cellulose fibers are the most common fiber that we start with as cotton fabric is readily available and affordable. However, cotton does not have the same affinity for natural dyes as protein fibers such as wool, so the cellulose mordant process is different to achieve good results. The mordant process for cellulose fibers includes pretreating with a tannin, then immersing the tannin treated fabric into an alum solution. This method is one of the earliest mordant methods for cellulose fibers and produces very good results. We use this method regularly as we also love to experiment with different tannins to … Read more

Mordant Monday: Nerd Week at Sanborn Mills Farm

I’m at the airport after teaching for 5 days at Sanborn Mills Farm in New Hampshire. Sanborn Mills Farm is a working organic farm and craft school specializing in traditional crafts such as blacksmithing, woodworking, basketry, kitchen and textile arts. We saw newborn lambs, massive draft horses and oxen and dormant grain fields just starting their spring activity. Sanborn Mills Farm is one of my favorite places to teach with a dye garden a few steps away and trails and farm animals to visit and observe. The weather was typical unsettled early spring and we encountered high winds, heavy rain, … Read more

Mordant Monday: Creating Color In Tucson

We used raw dyestuffs: cochineal insects, coreopsis flowers, marigolds, extracts and two indigo vats (henna and fructose). I was very impressed how beautiful the colors came out! I was fortunate to teach in Tucson, Arizona last month for the Tucson Handweavers and Spinners Guild. This was my first time in Arizona and it was a wonderful experience. The dramatic desert landscape really commands your attention and the light just before sunset is luminous. The swatches are from a number of different dye baths and we mixed and matched colors to create 4-color palettes with an indigo dip at the end. … Read more

Mordant Monday: Can I Mordant after Dyeing?

YOU ASKED: Can I mordant after dyeing? I just returned from India, dyed a number of silk scarves and was told the I can mordant them after they have been dyed. I have been trying to find more details but have only read on your site about post-mordanting something that has already been mordanted? KATHY ANSWERED: There’s actually a technique that is practiced in Japan that is referred to as “middle mordanting”. The process is to immerse silk fabric in dye, then transfer it to a mordant bath, and then return it to the dye bath. It definitely deepens the … Read more

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

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

Tannin and Alum 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