Mordanting

Before a fiber is to be dyed, mordanting can be very helpful.  Not all natural dye stuffs need it, but some do, they won't stick otherwise.
I use copper, iron, alum and tin for mordanting.
The alum I use is the same kind that you get in the seasonings aisle at the grocery store.  I buy it in bulk because it is more economical that way.
Copper took me a while find.  Finally found it at Home Depot.  It is used to kill roots in your sewer lines by putting it down the toilet.
Iron I ordered a pound of it from Earth Guild. http://www.earthguild.com/level2/products.htm
Tin I ordered from Aurora Silk when I ordered my Logwood.

Here is step by step of mrodanting.  The method is the same for all four mordants.  I have also included a chart of what percentage I use and any assistants as well.

1. Wet out the fiber.

2. Boil water for dissolving your mordant and assist.
3. Weigh your mordant and assist.

4. Dissolve your mordant in the boiling water.

5. Pour the dissolved mordant into the pot with the wet out fiber.
6. Heat the fiber slowly, over the course of an hour or more to 185F.  I use a thermometer that is designed to do meat in the oven.  I set if for chicken and set the alarm.  This way I don't forget that I was mordanting.

The pot is ready to go.

7. After is has reached 185F, turn the heat down just a little and let it simmer for 1 hour.  Then turn the heat off and leave until cool.  Some people rinse the yarn and others don't.  I do not have enough experience to say one way or another.  I did rise my yarn for the logwood, cochineal and rhubarb in previous posts.

Here is the pot of copper after it has cooled.

Here are copper and alum hanging out to dry.  These were not rinsed after mordanting.  They are for future use.

The percentages used are based on the yarn weight.  So if for example you have 100g of fiber to mordant, you would use 25g of alum and 8g cream of tartar.

mordant                assist

alum 25%             cream of tartar 8%

copper 4%           vinegar 5%

tin 1%                  cream of tartar 2%

iron 2%

Cochineal, Logwood and Rhubarb update

Sorry this has taken so long.
First the rhubarb leaves.  The ones that were drying ended up rotting and stinking so they went in the trash.  I still have the frozen ones, the extras in the trash bag went in the trash as well.  When I use the frozen ones I will update again about how well that works.

Here are the results of the logwood.
This is what the pot looked like the next day.

Here are some hanks just pulled from the pot.

Here they are after rinsing.  You can see how the color lightens.  I thought they were all going to be black.

You need to rinse you logwood really well if they dye bath wasn't strained really well.

Here they are on the line to dry.

Here is a close up of the copper mordanted fiber.  Nice color.

Here is my cochineal on the line, curing.  There are some experiments on the end that turned out nicely.

The cochineal took some extra effort to wet out before modifying.  As you can see the water just sits on the surface of the wool.  So the water had to be squeezed into the fiber.

So as I mentioned, the next step is modification.  This is where the color is changed by placing the yarn into a solution of either acid, such as vinegar or using citric acid, base, such as washing soda or ammonia, or other modifiers like copper or iron.  In this picture I have a hank from each mordant from the rhubarb, logwood and cochineal in a ammonia solution.  I used about 1 cup in the 2 gallon roasting pan.

Below are pictures of each yarn after all modifiers have been applied.

Logwood
First 5 are mordanted with alum.  The first one is not modified.  The second is modified using copper, third, iron, fourth, ammonia, fifth, citric acid.
Next 5 are mordanted with copper.  Modified as above.
Next 5 are mordanted with iron.  Modified as above.
Last 5 are mordanted with tin.  Modified as above.

Rhubarb is like the logwood, but hit or miss.  Remember this one was all experimental.

Cochineal is the same as the logwood.