Kathy is currently creating magic at Sanborn Mills for her Nerd’s Guide to Mordants workshop. We decided to give you a little taste into all of the beautiful mordant variations she is creating for this workshop and some of the key considerations you should take into account when beginning to mordant. For all of you budding mordant nerds out there, here are some highlights of what is covered during the class. We are working on bringing this class to you in online form, so here is a little teaser while you wait! What is a Mordant? A mordant is a … Read more
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
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 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
This week’s Mordant Monday explores another well known and important tannin: Cutch. Cutch is a wood dye from Senegalia catechu (formerly Acacia catechu), an acacia species that grows in South and Southeast Asia. The dye is both a colorant, and a traditional medicine. It is also the by-product from the manufacture of “katha”, which is a crystalline substance that is an ingredient in paan or betel nut leaf, which is an Indian mouth freshener and digestive. We’ve never tried paan, but we love cutch for its versatility and deep colors. It’s a sweet-smelling dye and the color yield ranges from … Read more
In today’s Mordant Monday (excuse the awful pun – I found it online), we check out how to use soy as a binder for natural dyes and pigments. Before the widespread use of acrylic paints and mediums, artists had ingredients from the natural world to use for painting and printing on paper and canvas. They used a wide range of natural binders including tree sap, milk, egg, oils, minerals and other substances that helped pigments stay attached to substrates. In Japan, soybeans are the most common binder for textile work, and it serves as a sizing to add body to … Read more
Today for Mordant Monday we thought we would bring a classic back from the vault and highlight one of our YouTube videos where Kathy answers your mordanting Questions!
Have fun with our video below. Don’t forget to Like, Comment & Subscribe!
This week: Weeks worth of mordanting questions melded into one FEEDBACK FRIDAY!
Watch here.
Kakishibu samples clockwise from top: paste resist by Kentaro Kojima, silk, cotton sashiko thread, cotton with iron, soda ash and kakishibu alone. Natural dyes are fascinating because we can see the history of human curiosity and imagination as it interacts with the natural world. Like, who looked at a hard, green, horribly astringent, inedible persimmon fruit and thought “You know, there’s probably an amazing, insect-repelling, anti-microbial, water-resistant, beautiful color in there if I just ferment it for a couple of years with a slice of eggplant.” Who, exactly? Whoever that clever person was, we have them to thank for one … Read more
We love rainbows, color gradations, anything to show off the beauty and nuance of natural dyes. And now with our pre-mordanted bandanas, you can make a rainbow of your own! Materials Experience level Familiarity with using natural dye extracts, or using raw materials in an immersion dye bath, and with overdyeing colors. Familiarity with indigo and indigo over dyeing. A 6 pack of pre-mordanted bandanas Yellow Orange Red Green Blue or Indigo Purple Process In this rainbow, the “primary” colors of Yellow, Red and Blue along with Purple are not over dyed as you can create those colors with a … Read more
This week’s Mordant Monday focuses on Chestnut. We used Chestnut extract in our gradation and absolutely loved the combination of Chestnut, Fustic and Iron with Indigo. This gradation is slightly different than our previous experiments. This time I did not overdye with a warm shade like Madder, to get corals and pinks. I wanted to focus on green and blue. Like previous examples, when a tannin is combined with other colors you can get exciting mixes and beautiful color blends that harmonize and are perfect for patchwork, creating gradations and stitching. If you are a yarn person, many of these … Read more
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