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Natural dyeing is usually a 2 step process. The yarn or fibre must be soaked in a mordant, that prepares the fibre to absorb the natural dye substance.
Difficulty Level:
Average
Time Required:
90 minutes
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Here's How:
- Use clean, scoured wool or yarn.
- Fill a large pot with clean water and heat.
- Weigh the yarn or clean, dry fleece.
- Using 10% Alum (potassium aluminum sulfate) to weight of fibre, mix the Alum into the hot water.
- Using 5% Tartaric Acid to weight of fibre, add the Tartaric acid to the hot water mixture.
- Rinse the wool so that it is damp.
- Add the wool or skeins of yarn into the hot Alum mixture.
- Make sure that the wool is all covered by the water, if not, add more water to the pot.
- Simmer the mordant mixture for x-about an hour at 90 degrees Celsius.
- Remove the yarns from the Alum mixture.
- The Alum mixture can be reused by adding 1/2 the amount of Alum and Tartaric Acid.
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Tips:
- If dyeing skeins of yarn, make sure that the skeins are tied securely, but loosely in at least 3 places, to avoid tangling.
- The mordanted yarns can be dyed immediately, or dried and stored for later natural dyeing.
- The alum/tartaric acid mixture is suitable for wools, silks and other protein fibres.
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