Mordant Mess
A lovely pile of mordanted mohair yarn
Mordant is what makes the dye adhere to the fiber. Aluminum potassium sulfate (alum for short) is the mordant that is commonly used for wool and silk and has been used since antiquity in the natural dye process. Mordant also helps with depth of shade and colorfastness.
My SOP is mordant, mordant, mordant everything I have on hand and then I can spend the following month or two just focusing on dyeing. Memorial Day weekend was a mordant weekend. I took an extra day off of work so I could get through everything - because even though the Salida Fiber Festival is in September and may feel like a long way away, for me it’s just around the corner.
I was on a roll on Friday and Saturday and projected to finish everything by Monday with time to spare! And then Saturday afternoon I was preparing to do the 3rd batch and I froze: Oh. No. I realized that I had been putting just a bit over half of what I needed. I mordant at 15% weight of fiber and I realized that I had been putting in about 9%. I simply added things up incorrectly. I then proceeded to weigh out the wrong amount AGAIN for the 3rd batch, which was mordanted at about 11%.
I panicked a bit…ok, a lot…ok, I actually called my sister crying. She proceeded to do a lot of online research for me to provide some suggestions on how to handle it. I also reached out to Botanical Colors for help too. Kathy, the owner, graciously provided some suggestions (see below) which calmed me immediately.
I share all of this with you all mostly to remind myself that I am human and make mistakes. I want to always keep a growth mindset with myself and learn from my mistakes. I also want to not be mean to myself when I make mistakes, which I do a lot. And if my sister had her way, she would say my biggest lesson should be that I need to build up my natural dye community more so I have more people in my world to lean on and provide help to.
If you’re a natural dyer and want to be friends, drop me a line! thedyesmith@gmail.com
In case you find yourself in a mordant mess, here’s Kathy’s answer:
Your mordant question has a number of answers.
If the two mordanted batches are going to all be the same color, then you might have some color variation, but it may be very subtle. Usually the color differences are noticeable if there's a decimal difference in the mordant used (meaning you wanted to use 20% but only mordanted with 2%)
You shouldn't need to re-mordant.
If you notice that the color is not coming out the shade you expect (like the color is way too light), you can add a little bit more dye, or keep the yarn in the dye pot for a longer period of time until the color develops more. An overnight soak (let the dye pot cool) often results in a darker shade.
If for some reason the color is still way off, then take the batches that are incorrect, cool them down and then soak them in more mordant (low or no heat) for an hour or longer, and then re-immerse in the same dye pot.
If you come up with two different mordant amounts and you're mordanting the same amount or weight of fiber, check your math.
My advice is basically to make lemonade out of a situation. Even though your mordant percentages were lower than normal, a quick dye test would tell you if you needed to re-mordant or add more dye, or just keep going because the difference isn't extreme enough to make a difference. It might also provide you valuable information that you can mordant at lower percentages and still get satisfactory results.
I hope this helps you with your project.