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I also wanted to keep working on the character that I am creating. A figure of a sort of creature-goddess with multiple inspirations and powers. I will used this material research for her costume and set design.
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## General informations
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A lot of knowledge was lost when people switched to synthetic dyes
Plant colors used for fabric, cosmetics, hair etc. but doesn't work for anything that has to be baked like pottery
A lot of plants contain color molecules, huge variety of different molecules
Plants can be used only on vegetal fibers (cellulose-based - cotton, linen, hemp, rayon, stinging nettle...) and animal fibers
Tinctorial plants (plantes tinctoriales)
We're going to look for the more solid (stable?) molecules, not going to get into ephemeral dyes
## Process and workflow
3 more stable plants: madder, reseda, marigold (calendula)
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3 primary colors:
My first step was too.....
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- red: garance (madder)
- yellow: reseda (réséda)
- indigo: many different plants
Reference Book: "Le monde des teintures naturelles" by Dominique Cardon.
## Preparing the fibers
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To receive color, fibers need to be opened.
It is hard to get raw fibers locally, generally buy them already prepared
"apprêt" (primer?) already applied, which prevents color to bind with the fibers
many baths with savon de Marseille are necessary to get the fiber back in its natural state, can take months
Lessive de cendre (wood ash, prepared from sumac, oak, walnut, chestnut tree...) is very good for preparing cellulosic fibers to be dyed
To make it you soak ash in water for several hours then filter out the solids
Very basic (alkanine) so toxic for human
Problem is that woods contain tannins, which dyes the fibers. Goal is to find woods that don't dye fiber a lot.
Oak has a lot of tannins but doesn't dye a lot so it's the best, walnut colors too much
Sap trees are too acid.
Never take a fabric just bought and try to dye it.
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## Mordanting
## Ingredients & Recipes
Most plants need help to hold on the fibers in time
A few plants are "plantes substantives" like rhubarb root (yellow), rumex (yellow), eucalyptus (orange) have oxalic acid and don't need mordanting for animal fibers (oxalic acid binds to protein in the fibers), they can also be used as mordants for other colors. They're not used a lot and only on animal fibers, not cellulosic fibers
Prepare this recipe [^1] by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:
For animal fibers, wool and silk, need alum, which is a metal. Most used is "alun de potassium" (potassium alum). Can be bought in crystals but can also be found in some plants to have 100% plant-based dyeing process: lycopodes, symplocos, prêle
To extract alum from the plants you make a decoction. These plants have a bit of color too (generally yellow)
Then you heat the fibers in an alum bath
Need to weigh the dry fibers first of all, and weigh the potassium alum
Ratio depends of the result you want, how strong you want the color to be, but a good ratio in 20% to 30%
Can also add some cream of tartar (5%) in addition to the alum for wool
Leave to soak at 90° for 2 to 3 hours then air it and let it dry a bit
??? info "ingredients"
The more you let the fibers dry between mordanting and dyeing the deeper the color will be and the more the color will stay
For cellulosic fibers you do a mordanting bath and then you add tannins
Tannins add nuances to the fibers, they have a color ; without tannins, colors have bad lightfastness on cellulosic fibers
Add protein to the fiber (so used on cellulose fibers and not animal fibers because they already have a lot of protein)
Gall nut (noix de galle) very concentrated in tannins, 50% tannins, and don't color much (a little off white)
Tannin bath left to heat for about an hour
30% plant or 10% tannin extract for the weight of the fibers
for 100g fibers, need around 3 litres of water
Iron is also a mordant, iron sulfate
Alum lights up the color, iron darkens it
Take rusty nails and leave it in vinegar for one month to make nail soup
Alunage + engallage
Lightfastness test: control sample in the dark, test sample left in the sun for 12 days
Washfastness test: try washing with dishsoap.
Rubbing fastness: try rubbing the fabric by hand for 10 minutes.
### Preparing the substrates
Cutting rectangles of woven:
- cotton
- linen
- silk
Also:
- wool (carded unspun wool)
Linen and cotton
30% alum
384 g linen
30% = 115g alum
10% tannin = 38 g
water 3l/100g = 11 l
350 g cotton
30% = 105 g alum
10% tannin = 35g
11 l
Mordant cotton and linen together in one pot
Wool
35g
30% = 8.5g alum
Silk
43 g
30% = 12.9 g alum
Mordant wool and silk together in one pot
Iron can be used as a mordant but also to add nuances to color, for instance with yellow dye it'll create green
Tannin+iron reaction becomes instantly very dark
Gall nuts with iron will already make a black color.
### Inks
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Going to use the leftovers from the tannin bath to make inks
Using iron in combination with the gall nut extract to make a black color
Iron not great on wool or silk because it damages the fiber
We'll use a printing technique from India with printing paste:
For printing we'll Make Acetate as a mordant
For alum (acétate d'alumine) : 1l vinegar for 100g alum (or 60g alumin sulfate which is easier to dissolve) + 50g cristaux de soude (that help the alum dissolve)
For acétate de fer, same recipe but with 60g de sulfate de fer
Add gomme de guar to make the liquid into a paste (for textile)
About 1% and has to be dissolved quickly to avoid lumps
For paper other subtances can be used (agar agar, wax...)
This paste is applied to the fabric, then let it dry, the fabric will be like cardboard where it's printed
The print, made in mordant, will be invisible
At this point we can do a wheat bran bath for the fabric
Removes the mordant surplus
Then we dunk the fabric in a dye bath and the color will only hold where the mordant was applied
David [Santandreu](http://lamaindessables.blogspot.com/) super teinturier à regarder
Adding color directly in the printing paste will make an ink.
## Ingredients & Recipes
* xxx gr madder root
* xxx gr alum
* xxx gr fabric
* xxx ml xxx
* xxx gr xxx
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### Blue sky
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## Documenting experiments
_example from the documentation of [Petra Garaiová](https://class.textile-academy.org/2022/petra-garajova/) FabTextiles Barcelona 2021-22_
