I’ve been saving up coffee grounds from Sean’s morning coffee for the past few weeks.
Thursday night – soaked my yard of cotton cloth in tannins (coffee grounds) for 90 min. at 185 degrees.
A tannin bath is used before the mordant, or metal ion bath, for cellulose fibers, such as cotton, hemp, linen, flax, etc.
Friday morning I went to the beach to get ocean water.
I soaked my cloth and some wool in the ocean water, or metal ion bath, for 90 min. at 185 degrees.
Protein fibers, such as wool, silk, etc. can go directly into the mordant.
The mordant helps connect the pigment to the fiber.
When I got home Friday night I made onion skin tea bags to make my dye bath.
Simmered the fibers again for 90 min. at 185 degrees in the dye bath.
I let this cool overnight and strained it out the next morning. This is the color of the fabric vs. the original white color.
the wool was even more striking.
36 hrs total. Probably 3 or 4 hrs of my time.
So satisfying to find a new life for these things that will end up in the compost pile.
And so exciting to see the alchemical transformation – the pleasant surprise of discovering what you will get.
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