Soya milk / soymilk solution – what is it used for? Is it a mordant?

I am rather puzzled by the many references I have seen recently to soya milk/soymilk “mordant”as I would not describe soya milk as a mordant, rather as an assistant in certain dyeing and fabric patterning processes. In my understanding, soya milk has the same purpose in Japan as buffalo milk has on the Indian Sub-Continent – in both cases the milk solution is used as a binder or sizing agent, applied to fabric before mordanting or dyeing, in order to increase absorption and to prevent wicking and improve the sharpness of the outlines when painting or printing mordants, pigments and dyes on fabrics. Unlike a true mordant, soya milk solution does not form a chemical bond. I have never known soya milk solution to be traditionally applied to yarns rather than to fabrics and as far as I know it is not commonly used on woollen fibres. However, as my experience of using soya milk solution is not extensive, I decided to conduct some tests.

I prepared the soya milk solution as follows, using information from John Marshall, (http://johnmarshall.to/H-Soymilk.htm), who is an expert in this field. I soaked one cup of soya beans overnight in three times their volume of water and then, when they had swollen, I strained the water off and rinsed the beans. I then added water to the beans (again three times their volume) and processed the mixture in a blender until the beans were well ground. I then poured the mixture through a piece of fine cloth spread over the top of a bowl and strained off all the liquid. I repeated this process three times with the same beans, each time adding the blended liquid to the previous solution. The final combined solution should be about the same consistency as cow’s milk and must be used fresh; as soon as it starts to become sour it should be discarded.

I then poured the soya solution into a bucket and added the washed and wetted materials. If necessary, more water should be added to allow the materials free movement in the liquid. I left the materials to soak for about 12 hours, moving them around from time to time, then removed them, squeezed them well and left them to dry. I repeated this process twice more but leaving the materials in the soya milk for only 5 minutes each time. I then left the materials to dry and cure for 2 weeks before using them. I then tested the materials treated with soya milk in dyebaths of madder and meadowsweet.

The madder samples are below.

 

MADDER ROOT Top from left: linen fabric, cotton yarn, cotton fabric, silk fabric, wool yarn (all soya milk pre-treatment & no mordant) Below from left: cotton fabric (no soya milk treatment & no mordant), wool yarn (alum mordant) I think these samples clearly show that, while the soya milk treatment improved the take-up of the dye, it did not act as a mordant in the way that alum does. That is to say, it did not give the red colour associated with madder on an alum mordant and produced the sort of colour one would expect from madder applied without a mordant. While soya milk is certainly useful in some circumstances as a pre-treatment for fabrics, I think it is misleading to imply it can be used instead of an actual mordant and this may lead to disappointment.

Note: the meadowsweet samples, which I have mislaid, showed even more clearly that the soya milk did not really act as a mordant. Meadowsweet gave only a very pale colour on both the soya milk treated materials and the untreated materials but it gave a bright yellow on the alum-mordanted materials.

PS Below are the meadowsweet samples – found at last!

Top from the left: cotton yarn, cotton fabric, linen fabric – all treated with soya milk & dyed in meadowsweet

Below from left: wool treated with soya milk & dyed in meadowsweet, wool mordanted with alum sulphate & dyed in meadowsweet

Apologies

I have been very seriously ill for the last two months and this has meant I’ve been unable to post on my blog. I am now at home starting the long road to what I hope will be a full recovery, so I should be able to start to write posts again soon. The following post on soya milk solution was prepared before my illness.

More about Symplocos leaves as a mordant

Following on from my recent experiments with symplocos leaves as a plant source of aluminium for mordanting, I have done some further tests, mainly to try this plant mordant out on silk and cotton fibres.

After my last tests, I re-used the 50% symplocos mordant solution on a further wool skein to test whether the solution would still be viable as a mordant and I was pleased to note that, when I added a sample to madder and logwood dye baths, it produced a strong colour. This suggests that the 50% mordant solution could safely be re-used on a further batch of fibres.

This led me to wonder whether symplocos would still work if used at a lower percentage, so I decided to use 30% instead of 50%. I also decided to see whether the 30% mordant solution could be used more than once.

The main difference between mordanting animal fibres and vegetable fibres with symplocos leaves is the temperature at which the fibres are treated. Wool fibres are heated slowly to simmering point, held at this temperature for about an hour then cooled and rinsed. Vegetable fibres and silk are treated in a hot solution (60C/140F) but not simmered. The vegetable fibres must also first be treated in tannin.

I prepared two sample sets, each consisting of wool, silk and cotton fibres, and I treated the cotton fibres first in a tannin solution from oak galls. I then weighed the sample sets and worked out the weight of symplocos leaves I would need for 30% weight of fibres (WOF).

To prepare the symplocos mordant solution for all fibres, I simmered 30% symplocos leaves in water for about 45 minutes then strained the solution through a piece of very fine muslin cloth. At this point I saved the used leaves and re-simmered them, so that I could add this solution to the exhaust mordant bath after my tests and then use this on a further batch of fibres.

I divided the symplocos leaf solution into two pots – one for cotton and silk and the other for wool.

I slowly heated the mordant bath containing the wool to simmering point then held this temperature for about one hour. I then removed the pot from the heat and left the fibres to cool down.

The cotton and silk mordant bath was heated to 60C/140F and then removed from the heat. The fibres were then left to soak in the solution for about an hour.

I then dyed the fibres in madder and logwood dye baths.

The photos below show the results from the madder extract and logwood extract dye baths.

  MADDER

Left from top: 30% symplocos first mordant bath on cotton, silk, wool

Right from top: re-simmered leaves + exhaust mordant bath on cotton, silk, wool

Centre below : no mordant, 10% alum mordant

  LOGWOOD

Left from top: 30% symplocos first mordant bath on cotton, silk, wool

Right from top: re-simmered leaves + exhaust mordant bath on cotton, silk, wool

Centre below : 10% alum, no mordant

From these tests it seems that using the symplocos leaves at 30% WOF gives good results but that re-using the 30% solution may produce paler shades on some fibres, which could be less fast. Although 30% WOF works well on the first batch of fibres, I think it might be better to use 40 – 50% WOF if one intends to re-simmer the symplocos leaves and to add the solution to the exhaust mordant bath for re-use.

 

Some photos of the dye garden

Dyer’s broom (Genista tinctoria) in full flower

 

Madder (Rubia tinctorum)

 

Woad (Isatis tinctoria) on the left at the back, lady’s bedstraw (Galium verum) in the centre with yellow flowers and the purple flower heads of saw-wort (Serratula tinctoria) just visible on the right at the back

 

A first-year woad plant (Isatis tinctoria)

 

Wild madder (Rubia peregrina) rambling through the garden and beginning to form seeds

 

Saw-wort (Serratula tinctoria) with its purple thistle-like flower heads

 

Yellow cosmos (Cosmos sulphureus) with its pretty yellow flowers

Yellow cosmos flowers give lovely yellow and rust dyes and I usually collect the flower heads as they begin to fade and then use them in a solar dye pot. For a rich burnt orange colour, add soda ash to the jar.

 

Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis)

I set up a solar dye pot with goldenrod and after 24 hours a pretty lemon yellow is developing. I used the dead flower heads only because I just can’t bear to cut the flowering heads.

Symplocos leaves as a source of aluminium mordant

Some plants are aluminium accumulators and can be used as an alternative source of alum for mordanting. Among them are clubmosses and I have written in an earlier post about how clubmosses were used in the past as an alternative mordant.

Another alternative source of alum comes from the leaves of  species of Symplocos. The leaves of Symplocos racemosa are used in parts of India as a source of aluminium mordant and in Indonesia Symplocos cochinchinensis is used in a similar way.

The Bebali Foundation is the organisation behind The Plant Mordant Project which aims to empower women in Indonesia by building partnerships for sustainability with rainforest communities and indigenous textile artists; the sale of dried Symplocos leaves for mordanting is part of this project.

The website www.plantmordant.org provides a wealth of further information on this project and also gives details of where to buy the powdered leaves and how to use them. This extract from their website explains the work of The Plant Mordant Project.

“The Plant Mordant Project offers natural dyers a unique opportunity to avoid mordants produced by industrial processes and make reliable colors 100% from plants. Powdered leaf from Symplocos trees can replace alum in conventional natural dye recipes and produce some exciting new colors. Natural dyers already chose plant dyes over synthetic dyes because they are aligned with their values, and the Plant Mordant Project offers an opportunity to extend the expression of these values by also using a plant-sourced mordant. 
.
At its source, the Plant Mordant Project builds partnerships for sustainability with rainforest communities and indigenous textile artists in Indonesia. Through its sourcing and sales of Indonesia’s traditional plant-sourced dye mordant, the Bebali Foundation (www.bebali.org) alleviates rural poverty and empowers women, saves rainforests, and supports the traditional textile arts. The Bebali Foundation brings to this project a decade of experience in the fields of conservation, indigenous culture, and rural livelihoods, while its partnerships with the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and the Indonesian Forestry Department, and its funding from the Ford Foundation bring world class scientific rigor and accountability.

I recently purchased some dried symplocos leaves from Couleur Garance in France and have begun to experiment with them. (www.couleur-garance.com)

Symplocos leaves can be used on all fibres; so far I have only used them on wool and I am pleased with the results. One thing to bear in mind is that Symplocos leaves also yield a yellow dye, so the yellow colour of the mordanted fibres may have an effect on the colours achieved from the dye pot. However, I found the colour difference on madder-dyed wool when compared with wool dyed on a traditional chemical alum mordant was very slight.

I used the powdered leaves at the rate of 50% weight of the fibres and simmered them in rainwater for about 30 minutes until they sank to the bottom of the pot. I used rainwater because the recipe stipulated “soft water” and I live in a hard water area. I then strained off the liquid and allowed it to cool to 40C as directed.

I washed the wool thoroughly and then soaked it in a weak solution of washing soda (soda ash) as directed in the recipe. (I suspect this washing soda soak is probably more relevant for use in areas where dyers may not have easy access to other wool washing materials. The important thing is to make sure the fibres don’t have any grease or dirt adhering to them.) I then added the wool to the cooled mordant solution and slowly raised the temperature to simmering point (95C) over a period of one hour. I allowed the solution to cool then removed the fibres and rinsed them. The fibres were a medium yellow colour, although the recipe said they would be a”pale shade of yellow”.

In order to be able to compare the effectiveness of Symplocos leaves as a mordant, I added samples mordanted with two other types of alum mordant – 10% aluminium sulphate and Kaltbeize AL, a cold mordant of aluminium formate, which I have written about in previous posts. I also added three further samples – two mordanted with different sources of tannin – blackberry leaves and shoots and oak galls – and one treated with rhubarb leaf solution.

 

This photo shows from l to r: 10% aluminium sulphate, Kaltbeize AL cold aluminium formate mordant (see a previous blog post), blackberry leaves, oak galls, rhubarb leaves, symplocos leaves

I then dyed all the skeins shown above in a madder dye bath.
The photo below shows the madder-dyed skeins in the same order as the undyed skeins above.
The photo below shows more clearly the difference in shade between the three types of alum mordant. The symplocos-mordanted skein is the third one from the left and it is only very slightly more orange in tone than the skeins from the other two alum mordants.
The second skein may appear slightly paler than the first skein but this is because the wool used for the second skein is more loosely spun and this may have caused the slight colour difference.
 My conclusion from this first experiment using Symplocos leaves as a mordant on wool is that they provide a useful alternative source of alum for mordanting, especially for those dyers who prefer to avoid manufactured chemicals and to use only plant materials. The colour obtained from madder on wool using a Symplocos mordant is virtually the same as the colour from an aluminium sulphate mordant and the initial yellow colour of the mordanted fibres seems to have an insignificant effect on the colour obtained.
I used the remaining Symplocos solution to dye two wool skeins an attractive shade of yellow but I intend to experiment with them to see if the remaining solution also contained enough aluminium to have a mordanting effect.

Some photos of the garden

Although my garden is small, I try to cram in as many plants as possible and to make the garden as colourful as I can. I plant mainly native plants and plants with flowers that will attract bees and other beneficial insects. The garden always seems to be humming with bees and when sniffing the scented flowers I have to make sure not to disturb the pollen gatherers!

Here are some photos of the garden in June.

When the much-needed rain has stopped I’ll take some photos of the dye garden, which is beginning to look rather overgrown.

More thoughts on the 1-2-3 lime/fructose indigo vat

I have been looking at various recipes for the 1-2-3 lime/fructose indigo vat, which was developed by Michel Garcia, and I made one interesting observation – in most of the recipes, the fructose (which is the reducing agent) is added before the lime (calcium hydroxide), which is the alkali. This surprised me as, when making 1-2-3 vats, I always add the alkali first. I wondered whether I was alone in this, so I was pleased to find that in Helen Melvin’s recipe the alkali is also added first. Helen is a very experienced dyer, with extensive practical knowledge of various types of indigo vats, and she has also attended courses led by Michel Garcia, so I felt I was in good company.

So why should I be surprised to find so many recipes in which the reducing agent is added before the alkali? Firstly, because it goes against what is, I think, the usual practice when making indigo vats; for example, when making an indigo stock solution, the alkali, in this case caustic soda, is added before the reducing agent; and when processing fresh woad leaves to make a vat, the alkali is added to the solution before the reducing agent. Indeed, the alkali is added first when making most types of indigo vats, so why would one change this order? The other reason why changing the usual order seems to me illogical lies in the name “1-2-3” vat, which seems to me to suggest that one would first add to the water one part indigo, then secondly one would add two parts lime (calcium hydroxide), the alkali, and thirdly three parts fructose, the reducing agent, thus maintaining the neat 1-2-3 order of both the proportions of ingredients and the order of adding them. (And also adding the ingredients in the same order as with other types of indigo vat.)

So does it actually make any difference whether one adds the alkali or the reducing agent first? One way to find out would be to do some experiments, so I made two small sample vats, for one adding the ingredients in the 1-2-3 order and for the other adding the ingredients in the 1-3-2 order. Otherwise, exactly the same weights of ingredients were added to each vat.

The photos below show the results. In each of the photos, the 1-2-3 order vat is on the left and the 1-3-2 order vat is on the right. The photos show the gradual progress of each vat and the final test samples. The vats each took about 1 hour to be ready for use.

The results indicate that the order in which the ingredients are added seems to make little, if any, difference to the final results. Although the vats didn’t look exactly the same at each stage, the dyed samples show that each vat produced samples of almost identical shades of blue. So I shall continue to add the ingredients in what seems to me to be the most logical order: 1-2-3.

For further information on indigo vats, see Helen Melvin’s excellent book “Indigo; The Colour of the Sea and Sky”, available from Helen at Fiery Felts (link on the right under “Useful Links”).

Reprint of “Colours from Nature”

My book Colours from Nature has been out of print for a while and Search Press has decided not to reprint it. So I have taken over the printing myself, in collaboration with D T Craft & Design, who will distribute the book.

The book has just been reprinted, this time with a coiled (spiral) binding, so it will lie flat when in use. It has a new cover, a few more photos and also has added acetate covers to keep the card covers clean.

Colour throughout, including colour sample swatches and some photographs.

Colours from Nature is a practical handbook for dyers, containing full details of all aspects of applying natural dyes to animal and vegetable fibres, with emphasis on safe, environmentally-friendly methods.

The introduction explains the various categories of natural dyes and gives an overview of the historically important dyes.

The first half of the book covers the preparation and mordanting of fibres, dye bath preparation and the application of dye colour, with chapters on colour modifiers, testing for colour potential and light- and wash-fastness testing.

The comprehensive recipe section, which forms the second half of the book, is arranged according to colour, with recipes for over 100 colours and numerous colour sample swatches. It gives instructions for using all the classic, traditional dyes, including madder, weld, indigo, fustic, logwood, brazilwood and the insect dyes cochineal and sticklac, and also for using more common plants, such as blackberry, rhubarb, oak and walnut. The section on blue dyes has recipes for 3 methods of preparing and using indigo and woad vats, plus useful information for solving some of the problems encountered when using indigo.

Colours from Nature also includes details for creating some compound colours and for using natural dyes in extract form. The final chapter lists other useful plant sources of dye colour. Colours from Nature is a complete guide in itself and it is also an ideal companion book to Wild Colour. It contains information not included in my other books and many more recipes for specific colours on all fibres.

I am delighted that Debbie and Pete Tomkies of D T Craft & Design (www.dtcrafts.co.uk) have agreed to sell and distribute the book for me and they will also be dealing with wholesale orders. If you would like a copy of this book, or if you would like to purchase copies for re-sale, please contact Debbie at D T Craft & Design (info@dtcrafts.co.uk)

 

 

More Skeins for Ditchling Museum

A couple of weeks ago I dyed a final set of samples for the Ethel Mairet project at Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, following recipes in the 1916 edition of “Vegetable Dyes”.

Below are the details of the recipes and the results.

Samples of wool and silk were dyed following the instructions on p 103 Recipe no. 7 for MADDER Red for silk

A cold 25% alum mordant was applied and the fibres were allowed to soak in the cold alum mordant solution for 24 hours. 50% madder was placed in the dye pot, together with a handful of bran tied into a muslin bag, and water was added. The fibres were rinsed and then added to the madder dye bath. The temperature was raised gradually to just below a simmer, the heat was turned off and the fibres were then left to steep in the dye bath without further application of heat. When the dye bath was getting cool, heat was again applied until a simmer was reached. The heat was then turned off and the fibres left to steep overnight. They were then removed, rinsed and washed.

Further samples of wool and silk were mordanted with 2% copperas (iron) and dyed as above, as suggested in the above recipe for brown shades.

From the left: wool, silk, wool for brown, silk for brown

Samples of wool, silk, cotton and linen were dyed following the instructions on p110 Recipe no. 1 for WELD  Yellow for Silk

Wool and silk fibres were mordanted with 25% alum sulphate and the cotton and linen fibres were mordanted with 5% alum acetate. 200% weld was simmered for 15 minutes then the dye liquid was strained off into a dye pot and left to cool. When it had cooled a little, the silk and wool fibres were added and left to steep in the dye solution. They were then removed. The weld was simmered again with the addition of 2 teaspoons of soda ash and this solution was then strained and added to the first dye solution. The dyed fibres were added to this solution and allowed to steep until they had achieved a suitable depth of colour.

From the top: wool, silk, cotton, linen

Samples of wool and silk were dyed following the instructions on p121 for DYER’S BROOM

The fibres were mordanted with 25% alum sulphate. The dyer’s broom was simmered for 45 minutes to extract the colour, then strained. The fibres were gently simmered in the strained dye solution for 45 minutes and left to cool in the dye liquid. They were then removed, rinsed and washed.

From the left: wool, silk

Samples of wool, silk, cotton and linen were dyed following the instructions on p125 Recipe no. 9 for CUTCH Brown for Wool

The fibres were not mordanted. 15% cutch extract was dissolved in boiling water then gently stirred into a dye pot of water. The fibres were added and simmered in the solution for about an hour, then left to cool for a while.  2% iron (ferrous sulphate) was dissolved in boiling water then added to a pot of water. The cutch-dyed fibres were added to the iron solution and simmered for 15 minutes. They were allowed to cool, then rinsed and washed.

From the left: wool, silk, cotton, linen

Samples of wool, silk, cotton and linen were dyed following the instructions on p139 Recipe no. 8 for GREEN WITH INDIGO EXTRACT & WELD FOR WOOL.

Wool and silk fibres were mordanted with 25% alum sulphate and the cotton and linen fibres were mordanted with 5% alum acetate. They were first dyed blue using indigo extract (Saxon Blue). The fibres were simmered in this indigo solution for about 45 minutes then allowed to cool a little. The weld dye bath was prepared by simmering 100% weld to extract the colour. The solution was strained off and the indigo-dyed fibres were added to the weld dye bath and simmered for about 45 minutes. They were left to cool in the dye bath, then rinsed and washed.

NOTE: Although this recipe is specifically for wool, it was used on this occasion to dye all four fibre types. However, as noted by Ethel Mairet, indigo extract is less suitable for cotton and linen and these fibres did not take up much blue dye. The silk reacted better but the depth of blue on the silk was still less than that on the wool. This meant that the greens achieved were less blue and more yellow in tone.

From the left: wool, silk, cotton, linen

Dyeing with bracken

It was interesting to read that one of the dyes used most frequently by Ethel Mairet was bracken (Pteridium aquilinum). In my garden I have several bracken or common fern plants which need to be cut back, so I decided to experiment with them.

I started with the old pruned leaves (see photo below) and was pleased with the results, especially from the alkali (washing soda) modifier.

Below are the results from this dye bath. From the top: no modifier, washing soda modifier, iron modifier, exhaust dye bath no modifier (All 10% alum mordant on wool)

For comparison, I decided to also make a dye bath from the new fiddle-heads (see photo below.)

Below are the results which rather surprised me, as I had been expecting the colours from the fiddle heads to be more yellow in tone.

From the left: alum mordant, alum + washing soda modifier, alum + iron modifier

I then decided to try a cool dye bath with the old leaves. I left the samples to steep in the dye liquid for about 12 hours and this cold soak produced the colours shown below.

Upper skein: no modifier, lower skein: washing soda modifier (Both alum mordant)

I then re-simmered the old leaves, strained off the dye liquid and added more skeins, this time unmordanted. The results are below.

From the left: no modifier, washing soda modifier, no modifier but skein simmered in the dye bath for a longer period of time.

Although the skeins are browner in tone than the photo suggests, these results were quite surprising, as I hadn’t expected to get deeper colours from the re-simmered leaves.

These experiments gave some interesting shades and I am not surprised that bracken was a dyestuff frequently used by Ethel Mairet.