New to natural dyeing? Start here.
Natural dyeing includes dye sources from five sources; plants, lichens, fungi, insects and minerals. All of which I’m hoping to explore in this blog over time.
The dye process itself generally has five basic steps:
Designing the scale and colours of your project and sources those materials.
Scouring your fiber to cleanse it of oils and debris that might inhibit an even dye absoption
Mordanting (see below)
Processing your fiber with your dye materials.
Rinsing everything and hanging to dry.
Note: there are many dye processes which don’t follow these steps or else only follow some. For example, fermented lichens or a chemical reduction dye vat for indigo.
Mordanting
Mordants do several things during the dyeing process and are usually introduced into the dye solution prior to dyeing. These chemicals fall into three categories; metal oxides, tannins and oxyfatty acids. They work through opening the fiber and allow the dye to bite by acting as a bridge to bond a portion of the pigment molecules to the fiber protein (animal fibers) or cellulose (plant fibers) structure. They are key to determining the shade, tone, intensity and even the resulting colour of the finished product while helping to make the colour light- and water-fast. Mordanting is a very important step in the dye process. In Viking Age Scandinavia, the most likely mordant was a clubmoss called Diphasiastrum complanatum which has high levels of aluminium and was readily available. Clubmosses for use as mordants have also been recovered from Anglo-Scandinavian York and the Greenland finds, these clubmosses were likely imported from Scandinavia.
Various metals are used to gain different colours from dye materials. For example, iron will darken your shade (often considerably), aluminum will usually bring out the same colour as your dye liquid/dye vat and copper will shift it into the blues and greens. I pick up all my mordants at Maiwa West in Vancouver, BC (maiwa.com). Note - not all dye material require a mordant, it depends on the materials you’re using.
Dyeing
Once mordanted (or not), the dye process is usually: chopping up the plant, mushroom or lichen, simmering it in a pot, adding the fiber, and heating it for some time. I sometimes use different methods such as fermenting or a chemical reduction vat for indigo. Within each entry, I’ve listed the weights, volumes, times and processes to get the colours shown. I don’t always track my temperatures, but I consider simmering to be about ~70-80°C (158-176F). Heat is needed to unlock great colour and some materials require higher temperatures to give good colours (e.g., madder), while other colours are destroyed if the temperature goes above 65°C (e.g., alkanet). Boiling usually destroys your colour so please monitor your pot carefully.
Acronyms:
% WOF: This refers to the ‘Percent Weight of Fiber’. For example, if I mordant with alum at 16% WOF for 100 grams of wool, I’ve dissolved 16 grams of alum into water to mordant the wool.
See below for general tips:
General Dyeing Tips
The real key of dyeing is patience. Take the three main components; scouring, mordanting and dyeing as three separate steps. Some days you only complete one step- the end results will be worth it.
In dyeing (scouring, mordanting, dyeing, washing) the following things will determine your colour and intensity (listed roughly in order): materials, timing, pH and heat. Ignore any of these at your peril.
Always keep your fiber wet once you've started this process unless you're planning on storing the fiber before completing the process. Keeping the fiber submerged will help give you even dye results.
You'll also need to pay attention to temperature. Dramatic temperature changes can felt your fiber: especially if it's single-ply wool. Use thermoregular bridges between each step (allow baths to cool on their own before moving fiber and use the tap to gently heat up the fiber). Sometimes dyeing plied wool can lull you into a false sense of security that felting (by not adequately controling tempertature) is someone else's problem...
Controlling your pH is very important for dyeing with madder, lichens and cochineal. Creating a more basic dyebath will bring out the richer, bluer pinks and purples (you can even get a purply/red from madder this way). Do not do this with baking soda as it binds up the dye-pigment molecules. Controlling the pH means determining the pH of the dye vat AND the water the fiber is sitting in prior to adding it to the dye vat. Do not change the pH once the fiber is in the dye bath- this will give you uneven results.
Owning a niddy-noddy, ball-winder and swift will make your life with fiber a lot more enjoyable. If you love to dye and weave think about getting this equipment if you don't have it. I can't believe I struggled so long without these key pieces of equipment.
Be careful when working with these substances. Use gloves and kitchens with good ventilations. As long as the materials are not too toxic (I don't use chrome as a mordant due to environmental concerns), you won't need a respirator but use common sense.
When overdyeing, dye first with the lighter colour and then check the overdyeing frequently to get the colour you want. When overdyeing with indigo (to get Saxon green), you only need to submerge the fiber for about 7 seconds. Then open up the fiber and leave for several hours to even out the tone before washing.
Branching out and dyeing with as many different types of plant and animal matter as possible will help make you a better dyer and helps keep things interesting.
Lastly, keeping a dye record is a nice way of keeping track of what your dyeing, learning and how your developing as a dyer. I write down notes as I go and then write it up on single pages with samples which I keep in page protectors in a binder. See photo on the right for a record sample. You may want to keep a small sample of predyed fiber as a comparison. I also keep records when the dye processes doesn't work.
