Jar 1: Sorrell with silk fabric. The fabric had assumed a lovely dusty rose color while the sorrell had lost almost all of its intense fuchsia hue in the process
Jar 2: Red spinach seed heads with linen fabric. This concoction came out smelling rotten, and looking that way too. Once the plant matter was removed (mostly), the fabric seemed to have a good brownish pink color. Quite varied from one part of the piece to another. That could be interesting.
Jar 3: Lemongrass and silk fabric. The liquid in this jar had turned slightly pink over time, though the lemon grass plant in very green in itself. Interesting observation. The fabric had turned pink here too, this time with yellowish tint.
Jar 4: Spinach leaves with linen fabric. This combination yielded next to no dye effect.
There is a tiny yellowish-gray change in the color of the fabric, but it will definitely be going back into a dye pot later.
Jar 5: Coffee with rusty bottle caps and silk fabric. This one was really successful. The fabric had turned a wonderful rich gray-brown. My favorite. This one had already sat with a mordant, so it should be ready to rinse...
I have to apologize that the pictures do not do justice to the colors. I will take better ones, once I let the fabrics sit for a few days and then iron them. After that I will experiment with mordants on some of the fabric pieces.
Here they are on the drying rack
So, what is a mordant, some one may ask.
A mordant is a substance that is either alcaline or acidic, so that when added to water, or a dye bath, it changes the Ph level in it. This causes the dye molecules to adhere better to the fabric. There are many combinations here of mordants, dyestuff and fiber, some work better together than others. I have no idea what combinations are good for my dyestuffs, so I will happily try some things and see what happens.
I have decided on four mordants: vinegar, iron (rust), copper and salt water.
The piece I dyed with coffee and iron has already been mordanted, as I said, so it needs nothing further, and the piece dyed with spinach did nothing, so I will leave it aside. The other three pieces, I will divide into five pieces each and expose a piece to each of the four mordants, and one without any.
This process is getting quite complicated! And scientific feeling. It's mushrooming into so many little samples, I'm afraid I will have a hard time keeping track of it all! I guess that's why I'm writing it down and taking photos.
