The Importance of Preparing your fibres
The best dye results are only going to appear with good fibre preparation. It helps to give the cleanest and most stable results. It is a bit of stuffing around, but honestly something you really need to do.
The type of preparing you will do will vary depending on the type of fibre you want to dye, as well as the dye you are using and the colour you want. The 2 main things to do are scouring and mordanting. Scouring is another term for washing while mordanting is adding a substance that helps the dye adhere to the fibre. It can also help to keep that connection more permanent.
Types of Fibre:
The best fibres to use for natural dying is of course, natural fibre. This doesn’t mean you can’t play and experiment with synthetic fibres. It can definitely be a way to add something extra to your craft world! For the purposes of the experiments in this blog however, we will stick with natural. Of the natural fibres, there are 2 main types, and both need to be treated a little differently in the preparation processes.
The first is protein fibre. This includes all fabrics made from animals. Such as wool, silk, goat, alpaca, lama etc etc. Animal fibres are on average easier to dye, which is the reason that I tend to experiment with dye stuff on wool first, and then move onto to the other fibres.
The second is cellulose fibre. These are materials and threads made from plants. Such as cotton, linen, tencel, mint, banana, etc etc. There are a lot of new and exciting fibres to play with now, and hopefully we will experiment with a few, within these pages.
Posts on different Fibre Preparation
As stated above there are many different ways to mordant your fibre. Depending on both the fibre choice and the type of colours you want. As I experiment and play with different mordants, I will let you know and list them here. Don’t forget to always start with scouring (washing) your fibre.
Protein Scouring
Washing your protein fibres.
Mordanting
Mordanting protein fibres with Alum
Mordanting Protein fibres with Iron
How to make your own Iron Mordant and use it.
Mordanting Protein Fibres with copper
How to make your own Copper Mordant and use it.
Cellulose Scouring
Washing your Cellulose Fibres
Mordanting cotton
Mordanting your cellulose fibres with alum
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