Thursday, August 11, 2011

more from the haphazard dyepot

Experimenting with the theory that an aluminium pot can act as a mordant. Same sad old (formerly) white cotton top as before.
 Once again, lacked time and patience to pre-soak or really follow the instructions in the lovely book, like soaking overnight in aluminium-pot-water.
 Dumped loads of coffee grounds in with cotton top and water and brought to the boil for half an hour or so. Partway through, thought hey, maybe I have a source of iron-as-mordant too.
 Who knows? Worth a shot. Normally used in the garden on things like my yellowish macadamia tree.
So yeah, cooked it up for a while, let it sit for a bit. It looked to be going a fair bit darker than the first time. Then I went to rinse it out. Which is where I found...
 Our source of mordant-rich water! Yes, the rusty old rainwater tap in the laundry. The orange-tinted water that comes through the rusty pipe is exactly what was called for! I could actually see colour processes happening as I rinsed: the rust-coloured water became quite a dark grey.
 I will spare you any further gruesome underarm shots - suffice to say that the aluminium content is still working away and the top is no more wearable than before.
 But what a cool experiment!
Um, here's our pretty cat Elodie, and some weeds. Happy Thursday.

- Jane x

2 comments:

  1. I love that you're going around your house thinking "hmmm, does this have any metal in it?" Too funny!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your search for mordants is cracking me up.

    ReplyDelete

Hey, I would really love to know what you think. Go on!

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