Vinegar mordant

Making an iron mordant is simple – get some pieces of iron, preferably rusty, put them in a jar and cover with vinegar. Let this sit for a couple of weeks, or until the liquid changes colour,…

Even before people began to spin yarn and weave cloth, they applied colored earth, plant saps, and juices directly to their skin: this was the first type of cosmetics. Women in Mediterranean region...

To fade or not to fade, that is the chemical reaction.

Gemma Stevens is a Montreal based multidisiplinary aritst and professional photographer.

Making an iron mordant is simple – get some pieces of iron, preferably rusty, put them in a jar and cover with vinegar. Let this sit for a couple of weeks, or until the liquid changes colour,…

Use these recipes to make mordants for natural dyes.

I prefer alum as a mordant as it has given me more consistently 'exciting' results. By exciting I mean that the wool has taken the dye well and the colours tend to be deep shades of whichever colour.Salt and vinegar still have their place though, since they can both be bought easily at the supermarket, and there are still nice colours to be had. Here are some of my results: I thought that I had done something wrong with this one, but according to various places on the internet, beetroot just…

I made some dye samples with red cabbage and unbleached cotton fabric. I used this red cabbage dye solution. ‘Nothing’ means I let the fabric untreated. I even didn’t wash it in water. After rinsing the fabric in water, it turned blue (the water is rather alkaline here). In a soda-water-solution, the fabric became instantly … Continue reading Red cabbage – dye samples →

You can create a safe mild copper mordant at home. However, it is better to use it as an after-bath for color shifting, rather than your main mordant. Copper is toxic and care must be taken in all handling and preparing of a copper mordant or after-bath.

Malt vinegar is this kind of vinegar that comes from malted barley, which is a grain. It starts out as something that looks like beer but then it’s fermented,

Natural dyes that don't need mordant. Discover the reason why you can avoid the use of a mordant while using these 5 natural dyes.

This is a continuation of part 2 on the use mordants in natural dyeing. In this part I am focusing the use chrome and copper. Part 1 of the post on the use of mordants like alum, iron and tin are here Mordant in natural dyeing (part 1) Mordants are great to use in natural […]

What are natural dyes? Are they harmful to the environment? Is vinegar a mordant?

Got any rusty old metal lying around, or know someone who does? All you need is vinegar, water, and some patience and you've got a liquid that will provide a larger, deeper spectrum of colors when used with natural dyes! (Recipe adapted from "Wild Color" by Jenni Dean, a go-to for natural

A mordant is used in natural dyeing to affix the colour to the fibre. Anyone else tried this?

Now you can buy a jug of the cheap stuff and throw some of that mother ACV in it and make more of the "good stuff" on the cheap and just keep splitting it...

I prefer alum as a mordant as it has given me more consistently 'exciting' results. By exciting I mean that the wool has taken the dye well and the colours tend to be deep shades of whichever colour.Salt and vinegar still have their place though, since they can both be bought easily at the supermarket, and there are still nice colours to be had. Here are some of my results: I thought that I had done something wrong with this one, but according to various places on the internet, beetroot just…

In this post I want to highlight the important topic of mordanting and help you chose which mordant to use for your natural dyeing project.

Iron water is magical. You can use it to shift yellows to olive green, deepen browns, transform bright cochineal pinks into moody plums, and make all sorts of gorgeous grays depending on what kind of tannins you combine it with. Historically Iron was used to sadden colors.

Most of us store apple cider vinegar in the kitchen, but it can be used for much more than salad dressing. MUCH more. Known across the interwebs as ‘ACV,’ ...