DIY Iron Mordant Recipe for Natural Dyeing and Eco Printing. Learn how to make an Iron and Copper Mordant for Plant Dyeing and Eco Dyeing.
Summer is in full swing in my garden, so that means I'm eco printing on paper all the leaves and flowers I can lay my hands on.
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.
The project for August in the Dye Plant Calendar 2017 is contact printing with fresh dye plants. Half a page summarises an essentially simple process, though I have come to realise there is a great deal more one could usefully say about all the monthly projects. Following chat online about ecobundles, I understand there are a great many methods suited to different plant materials and different print effects. I enjoy the gardening aspect of plant dyeing so the process I've developed is essentially making freshly picked dye plants, the classic kind that contain intense concentrations of dye, print with their own dye. Over the years, I've blogged about various successes and failures trying this and that with plant prints. At the risk of becoming monumentally dull, this particular blog will be a (very) detailed description of what I am currently doing to make prints like the one on the T shirt shown above. I'd hesitate to call it 'ecobundle'. Maybe I should be explicit, the process doesn't use vinegar or soy milk or iron blankets and does rely on the cotton being treated first with a chemical mordant, aluminium acetate, which I buy from Wild Colours online shop. This is not the same stuff as alum, which is only a mordant for protein fibres like wool and silk. I use aluminium acetate because it is a straightforward, fairly quick, one step treatment for plant derived fabrics like cotton and linen, it does not add any colour of its own, but does reliably enable the adjective plant dyes to fix on and stay bright, rather than fading fast. Since this is intended to be an exhaustively thorough reference blog which will save me giving lengthy explanations in future, I will add, though I expect this is obvious anyway, when you are mordanting and dyeing with plants, do not use kitchen equipment you intend to use for food and while working, take safety precautions, bearing in mind that dye plants themselves may be toxic or allergenic and aluminium acetate, iron and copper are none of them fit to eat. I'm no seamstress, so I begin by buying a 100% cotton T shirt (second hand, of course). The thread used to sew them together is usually polycotton which doesn't take up plant dyes well, so I have to live with any visible stitching remaining undyed. An accurate weighing scale is ideal, if you don't have one, to give you a rough idea, a cotton jersey women's medium size of decent quality and thickness would weigh about 140g. To clean off or scour the fabric, my T shirts go through a 60 degree centigrade wash cycle with no powder or conditioner in the washing machine, though you could equally well thump one about in hot water by hand. While it is washing, I weigh out 5% of the weight of the T Shirt in aluminium acetate, which is a fine white powder, one heaped teaspoon is about the 7g needed to mordant a 140g T shirt. Put the aluminium acetate in a jam jar, pour in hot water, stir well and leave to stand. Fill a large pot, at least 10 litres capacity, with warm water and stir in the dissolved aluminium acetate. Now add your T shirt, still wet from the wash, squeeze out any trapped air pockets, bring the pot to the boil, simmer for an hour and leave to cool. Give the fabric one rinse in plain water and either use it straight away or dry it to dye later. There will still be half of the aluminium acetate left in the pot, so you can save the fluid or just add another 3.5g (half a heaped teaspoon) to mordant another T shirt. In the meantime, make a plant dye bath to give colour to the parts of the T Shirt that are not included in the print roll. I often use the afterbath of a plant dye bath that has already dyed some wool. Otherwise, I pick whatever flowers are plentiful - August is a great month for yellow cosmos, coreopsis and Dyer's Chamomile, earlier in the summer I'd go for meadowsweet - and just put them in the dye pot with water, so they can release their dye while the printing bundle is simmering. Adding a bit of brown onion skin peps up the orange and yellow tones. To my mind, the resulting uneven, splotchy background rather suits these prints. Here is a table set up with my contact print equipment. One aluminium acetate mordanted, soaking wet cotton T shirt. One section of sawn off plastic drainpipe 26cm long (a little less than the width of my dye pot). A ball of undyed cotton string. Four mugs. A roll of greaseproof paper (aka baking parchment). A jar in which rusty nails have been dissolving iron into a mixture of water and vinegar and a similar jar with dissolving bits of copper piping. Vinegar contains acetic acid. This will dissolve rust, which is iron oxide, to make iron acetate. It will also dissolve copper oxide to make copper acetate, though much more slowly. If you can't wait for weeks, you can buy ferrous sulphate and copper sulphate as crystals which dissolve instantly, but read up on safe handling, because metal sulphates are more toxic than homebrewed acetate solutions. Unlike fine silk, cotton jersey is thick enough to prevent plant dyes from penetrating cleanly right through. The prints will be much clearer on the side of the fabric touching the plants, so turn the T shirt inside out. Some dye will pass through the fabric, so the next step is to keep the plant prints distinct and prevent the colour from the main dye bath reaching the printed area. Tear off a length of greaseproof paper a little wider than the T shirt and as deep as the section of pipe, or the stick, or whatever you will be rolling your T shirt around. Lay the inside out T shirt front side down over the strip of paper. Now put two cups in through the sleeves and two at the bottom opening to open some space to work inside the T shirt. Hooray, at last you can skip around the garden, harvesting dye plants. The ones that I have found contain intense concentrations of dye sufficient to print their colour and shape directly are the flowering spikes, stems and leaves of weld and coreopsis tinctoria and madder roots. Double maroon hollyhocks, yellow cosmos and Dyer's Chamomile will make blotches of colour, though they are unreliable at making recognisable flower shapes. Dip the weld flower spikes and leaves in the iron solution, shake off the excess fluid and lay them inside the T shirt where you want them to print. The small amount of iron will modify their natural yellow luteolin dye into green, which shows up better, in my opinion. You could do the same with the Dyer's Chamomile flowers. Lay the sprigs of coreopsis tinctoria inside, just as they are. The dark red flowers give a dusky halo round the orange print of the centres, the petals with more yellow don't always show up. Coreopsis leaves wilt within minutes, so lay them in before they flop, because the prints they make are beautifully crisp. Thick madder roots can be chopped up to make a sprinkling of little red dots on the cotton, though I think the fine wriggly roots are used to their best for making contact dye prints. I lay on the splodge plants last - you can see one double magenta hollyhock and yellow cosmos on the top layer, the cosmos flowers get a dip in the copper solution to bring up their colour. Take out the cups and gently straighten out the T shirt, ready to roll the working area with the plants inside and the greaseproof paper underneath, like a Swiss Roll, round and round the pipe, then bind it firmly over the outermost layer of paper with lots of string. Here's a good video for learning one handed, quick release knots. Submerge the roll slowly into the dye pot, making sure the water flows inside the pipe so it won't bob to the surface. Bring to a low boil and simmer for a couple of hours, then leave it overnight. Thick aluminium pots are harder to clean than stainless steel, their advantage is that they keep the heat for hours longer. I buy mine second hand on eBay. You could keep an eye out for anything 28cm wide or bigger, between £20 - £30 per pot including p&p is pretty good, they do last forever. Anyway, here is the roll in the pictures above, which I pulled out of the pot to drain this morning. Impatient as I am, I know that if I unroll it and wash it too soon, the prints will be paler. I shall give it a few days to dry slowly, then a few more days after unrolling to fix before I wash it in the machine at 30 degrees centigrade with a pH neutral detergent and finally give it a hot steam iron. Here are some I made earlier. It's a gloomy morning for taking glamour shots and they look considerably more vibrant in real life. I nobly resisted the temptation to use the enhance function on this photo - it annoys the tits off me when I can tell other people have done that. Last question, will these prints last? I can say with confidence that if I have a flower dyed T shirt displayed in the shop window of Crafts by the Sea, exposed to full sun every afternoon, the colours will dim considerably over the course of the summer. The ones I keep in a drawer to wear and wash myself are good for years. Shirts made of cotton and linen blend take plant dyes even better. Here's one I filled with plants before folding it up to roll around the pipe. It was photographed on a brighter day, you can come and have a look at the real things if you happen to be passing through Ogmore by Sea. The shirt's in the shop for £30, the T shirts will be taken down there on Sunday and will be for sale at £20 each.
A few weeks ago I made a bundle of cotton gauze using leftovers from the garden; sage leaves, onion skins and a piece of old copper pipe.
First a disclaimer: no pennies were harmed in the process of dyeing this fabric. Craft of the Dyer: Colour from Plants and Lichens by Nova Scotia dye expert Karen Leigh Casselman is my main dye bible. Most of the dye recipes are for plants found in North America, but Casselman offers two offbeat mineral dye recipes with copper pennies and clay as the dyestuff. This summer I'll try the clay recipe which is very messy. Copper penny blue was manageable in my laundry room. Dawn MacNutt adapted the recipe from a Salish Weaving book and shared it with Casselman. The recipe is simple: combine ammonia, water, pennies, and fabric in a sealed glass jar and let sit for a few weeks. Ammonia is dangerous to work with, so I wore a respirator, safety glasses, a splash shield, a dye apron, and chemical gloves when I handled it. I immersed 417 pennies in a solution of one-third cup of ammonia and two-thirds cup of water, and then added more water and fabric. I let the mixture sit for 3 weeks. The pennies are not harmed in any way and can be used for the usual purposes once they are rinsed at the end of the dye process. The book goes into more detail than what I have given here. As you can see, the copper penny ammonia dye solution yielded a grey blue on cotton fabric. Next I'll add some pale onion skin dyed fabric to see what shade of green I get. Pennies are no longer made of 100% copper. Canadian pennies were made of copper until 1996 and U.S. pennies were made of copper before 1982, so I bought $10 worth of pennies from the bank and sorted them. Ten dollars (1000 pennies) yielded 415 copper pennies, less than half. I haven't yet read India Flint's dye books – I'm planning to get my hands on them this Spring. Casselman's book is extremely informative but lacks pictures. Some of the newer dye books have gorgeous pictures that are beautifully styled but basic information like light-fastness is missing.
DIY Iron Mordant Recipe for Natural Dyeing and Eco Printing. Learn how to make an Iron and Copper Mordant for Plant Dyeing and Eco Dyeing.
These beautiful handmade scatter cushion is a perfect way to add a finishing touch to your home decor that isn't damaging to our planet Each cushion cover is lovingly handmade in my workshop from this high quality reclaimed satin fabric, the same fabric is on both sides and has a zipper closure hand printed label and overlocked for a professional finish Available in thirteen colours orange, red, cream, white, dark purple, mulberry, burgundy purple, black, sage,goldenbeige, dark gold, brown and copper This listing is for one cushion cover only Hand wash is advised All cushion covers are made with small batched of reclaimed fabrics therefore this items is a limited run and there will be no more produced Please note although every effort is madero show items colour as accurately as possible we can not guarantee that every computer monitor will depict the colour perfectly Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions ABOUT : Noraeves was created with one goal in mind, to create beautiful home decor that isn't damaging to our planet. All items and labels are made from reclaimed fabrics that are destined for landfill. Each piece is lovingly handmade with high quality reclaimed fabrics and 100% recyclable packaging
For those interested in Natural dyeing: We wildcraft a lot of our dyes... And we have the ready ability to make mordants! Fantastic isn't it. Let's back this up a little. Where I live (Coast Salish Territories, Vancouver BC) there are SO many dyes to go collect. But there is magic in making your own mordants. I collected rusted pieces of metal from one of my garden plots. That is what i'm using for the iron mordant. For the copper, i'm using some thich copper wire i've had laying around the studio for a while! For the iron, I put the rusted metal into a jar. I then put in 2 parts water, and 1 part white vinegar. I labeled the jar as such, and put it out on my porch. For the copper, I put the copper wire into jars. I then filled the jars with 1 part water, and 1 part white vinegar. I also labeled these jars, and put them out on the porch. These jars living on my porch have good company. As of right now there are 12 jars of various things being solar dyed. (A few of them are experiments to show what different mordants can do! Also, there are skeins of hanging naturally dyed yarns, and pots of dye plants growing. I think that all of these things together make the house look quite witchy, and that makes me happy! So now I wait! The jars of copper mordants will turn blue, and they will be ready to use. The iron jar will become the colour of light tea, and it will be ready! I can refill these jars again and again with their respective water/vinegar solutions, and continue to get my own homemade mordants!
A simple natural dyeing method that can be done from home, bundle dyeing creates botanical prints from flowers, petals, leaves, herbs and vegetables.
A few weeks ago I made a bundle of cotton gauze using leftovers from the garden; sage leaves, onion skins and a piece of old copper pipe.
GeoMon's details of Parys Mountain copper mine Anglesey, once the biggest in the world; use our leaflet to guide you round the mountain
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 […]
I have been eco-printing for 5 years, and have not used any eucalyptus until last month. Much of India Flint's work focuses on the use of Eucalypts, native to her South Australia. I have been tempted, but since it does not grow here in the frozen north, I have concentrated on usi
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 […]
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.
Chlorophyll prints by Yago de Orbe Klingenberg are high quality and beautiful, step by step he shows how he achieves this result.
Why stop at one print if you can get much more interest by printing again!? Amazing reactions create unique details with this multiple Eco Print Effects.
Tying your bundles tight to Eco Print can be difficult. See my Bundling tips for Eco Printing and save your fingers. Easy and fast!
In this blog I will show the different colours achieved with tannins, and how to create a dark background using an iron Blanket in eco printing. The classic way of creating blacks and other dark backgrounds in eco printing is the use of tannins in combination with ferrous sulphate (often called; iron).
So many possible surfaces are available to Eco print on. Let's explore how to Eco Print on Ceramic Bisque vessels and pots.
Eco-printing is fairly easy, and you probably have most of the things you need already stashed away in your kitchen and craft table.
Tutorial how to print with mordants and iron, print with natures leaves for permanent prints on cotton or linen fabric. Use botanicals to create Eco print
Summer is in full swing in my garden, so that means I'm eco printing on paper all the leaves and flowers I can lay my hands on.
Tips and tricks to collect and save leaves for future use in eco printing. Don't lose leaves to mould. Be able to print all year long with your stockpile
Using additional methods to eco printing and the combination of iron into the mix. Tannins love iron and the Iron Blanket explained
Look at the colours of Fall! How magical are the colours from Eco Printing with Autumn Leaves - so much science!
Why stop at one print if you can get much more interest by printing again!? Amazing reactions create unique details with this multiple Eco Print Effects.
Heliography (in French, héliographie) is the photographic process invented by Joseph Nic'ephore Ni'ece around 1822, which he used to make the earliest known permanent photograph from nature. Some time ago I promised a tutorial on sun printing fabrics and at long last I have it complete! This method of sun printing requires very few supplies and a nice sunny day. This technique will offer you a very subtle print that can be used as is printed or enhanced by paint or ink. Along with the fabric technique I will show you some results on other substrates like painted book pages, canvas, and plaster paper. Each application was the same but with very differing results. Sun Printing (various printing techniques which use sunlight as a developing or fixative agent) or Heliographic Art is a process where a wet medium is applied to damp fabric, in this case we are using strong coffee, while still wet, objects like stencils, cutouts, natural elements, etc. are placed on the wet fabric. It is then placed in full sunlight. As the fabric dries the outlines of the objects are transferred onto the fabric surface, in an essence, the sun is photographing the outline of the image onto the substrate. There are two methods of this fabric process, printing and painting, in this tutorial I will show you the printing method. SUPPLIES: *100 % cotton fabric, white will give you a more crisp visible print - A blend of cotton and synthetic (containing at least 50% cotton) will give you good results but the colors will be less vibrant and the design not as resistant to washing. I used a 100% cotton medium weight off white muslin, I wanted more of a tone on tone subtle print for the project I have in mind. *Spray Bottle *2 Tablespoons Instant Coffee *1 Cup hot water *2 teaspoons alum OR 2 Tablespoons Vinegar *Nature Finds - Leaves, flowers, grasses, feathers, etc. *Small pebbles to use as weights *Sturdy cardboard or piece of wood covered with a plastic trash bag or wax paper - tape down trash bag or wax paper so it does not slide or lift in the printing process. This will provide you with a smooth waterproof surface for the wet material to "stick" to which is needed for this process. I use the back of some old corrugated weather proof signs compliments of Handy Hubby. *Bowl of water *Iron * A sunny but still day, wind is not your friend for this printing process ;c) INSTRUCTIONS: *Machine wash your fabric to remove sizing, dry in dryer, once dry iron smooth. *Gather nature printing supplies: leaves, petals, flowers, grasses, twigs, stones, feathers, etc. *Mix 1 cup hot water with 2 Tablespoons instant coffee and 2 teaspoons alum OR 2 Tablespoons Vinegar, once thoroughly mixed pour into spray bottle. *Dip fabric into a bowl of water, wring out, smooth onto wax paper covered cardboard, wet material will "stick" to the waterproof surface. METHOD #1: *Place your nature finds in a pleasing arrangement on your damp fabric *Spray with coffee mixture pressings nature items down as they become wet *Place the board/cardboard which includes your finished piece in full sun - printing time can take as little as 15 minutes up to 1 hour, to check process gently lift the edge of nature item and check the strength of the print underneath. I usually set a timer and check mine in 30 minutes but generally I have found the complete printing/drying process to be about an hour. METHOD #2: *Before placing nature items on damp fabric surface, spritz lightly with coffee mixture *Place your nature finds in a pleasing arrangement on your coffee damp fabric *Spray coffee mixture over nature finds, pressing them down as they become wet *Place the board/cardboard which included your finished piece in full sun to print/dry as described above. *Once print has reached the desired effect you want, remove the nature elements. *Heat set the fabric by ironing for 2 to 3 minutes on the "cotton" setting of a hot dry iron. NOTE: light weight or even thicker foliage might need to be weighted down with pebbles to get a good outline and to prevent being swept away by a rouge puff of wind. *Once dry and heat set, the fabric should be treated like any piece of cotton, heat set with iron, rinse fabric lightly, put in clothes dryer at hottest setting, ans if desired once dry iron as an additional heat set. It is machine washable (without bleach!) and can be dry cleaned. RESULTS: *Leaves on 100% cotton off white muslin: *Leaves on 100% cotton fabric with a tone on tone bark like print: *Fern and Dried Grass on 100% cotton off white muslin: *Feathers on 100% cotton off white muslin: Your fabric is now ready for use in your artwork! OPTIONS OTHER THAN THE SUN: If the sun is not reliable there are other printing options: * Heat lamps, like the ones used in restaurants to keep food warm work well (this needs to be watched very carefully as they get EXTREMELY hot!) * A UV light such as the kind used to grow indoor plants will work. * Also, if weather is not cooperating you can place the fabric in front of a large window until completely dry, although the results are faster if the piece can be placed in direct sunlight. SEMI-USELESS TIP: Now you might or might not need this tip but just in case you might want to make sure your dog is put away, your cat is not lurking nearby, and there are no scampering squirrels in the vicinity to disrupt your printing process but just in case... While your back is turned your cat might be stalking a scampering squirrel. Your dog might just see the cat and the squirrel and decided to give a yapping chase that might accidentally just take place in the path of drying projects. You glance back just in time to witness the commotion. A scared scampering squirrel is making a leap for higher ground only higher ground happens to be your cardboard on the edge of a small table and is not so solid after all. It tips and flips flinging your half baked project onto one very startled cat who is hunchbacked and hissing at yapping dog while you gape in astonishment and wonder if you are living in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I am just saying, it can happen! This explains why you don't see some of the results featured in the photos...only at the Quill! OTHER SUBSTRATES: *Leaf Print on Acrylic Painted Dictionary Page: *Leaf Print on Plaster Paper: *Leaf Print on Primed Canvas: SECOND SEMI-USELESS TIP: If you receive a phone call that requires you to leave during the printing process you might want to scrap the project, baked on plant matter is a bear to scrape off of a primed canvas...again...I am just saying...it could happen...here at the Quill! THIRD SEMI-USELESS TIP: If by chance while you are called away one very small rain cloud in an otherwise brilliant blue sky might scud by and spit on your canvas! Those spots you see were not on purpose. Seriously, I drove up to find it sprinkling ONLY over my project! Now, say you really, really, really want those spots, not a problem: While your project is wet sprinkle table salt over it for fine spots or rock salt for bigger spots. When dry simply brush salt off and spots will remain. OR after project has thoroughly dried but before heat setting, flick water onto surface to make coffee bleed, allow to dry again, then heat set. I hope you enjoy trying this tutorial to make your own unique fabrics to enhance your artwork!
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