ALUM MORDANT (Potassium Aluminum Sulphate Dodecahydrate) ~ necessary for most plant dyes to ensure colour fastness.
Alum is considered the least harmful or safest when it come to mordants used in plant dyeing. What many don't know is that Alum occurs naturally in nature and some plants, like horsetail, contain Alum.
For mordanting Cellulose fibres, please choose one of the following recipes on our blog:
How to mordant linen and cotton fabrics successfully – AppleOak FibreWorks
How to mordant Linen and Cotton successfully without Tannins – AppleOak FibreWorks
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Basic recipe for wool:
Weigh your DRY textile material.
Soak your dry material.
10%-20% Alum (D.W.F. = Dry Weight of Fibre)
Cold mordanting:
Dissolve Alum in hot water, add to mordanting pot. Add your pre soaked wool and let sit for 24-72h
Hot mordanting:
Add 5% of Cream of tartar to your mordanting bath, to slow down the Mordant uptake. Add wool and bring to 80C for 1h. Let cool.
Rinse and dye or dry for later use.
