I figured if I was going to dye with sumac berries I might as well grab some leaves and try to make a tannic acid mordant. Why not? I am familiar with mordant on wool, alpaca and silk. I have never tried to mordant cotton before. Here is what I learned.
Mordant on cotton can be done a couple of ways, but the process I wanted to try involves three steps.
1. Alum mordant 2. Tannic Acid 3. Alum Mordant
I will post another blog in detail about these steps. But for now I will show you how I made the tannic acid.
I walked down the road from my farm and found several sumac bushes. I was dyeing with sumac berries so I plucked those and filled a plastic tub with sumac leaves. It turned out to be 3.5 oz worth of leaves. They were already turning yellow, red and orange. I read conflicting information on when to pick the leaves. One source said during the height of summer and the other in the fall when the leaves turn red. The latter wrote that the tannic acid is at a higher content when the leaves turn then when they are green. I couldn't confirm this anywhere else. If you have any information on this or have thoughts leave me a comment.
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| Sumac leaves |
I washed the leaves off in cold water and placed them in my large dye pot with 3.0 gallons of water. I put the leaves in and brought them to a simmer. They remained on simmer for about 90 minutes. I turned the heat off and let them sit overnight with the lid on the pot. The next day I simmered them again for 90 minutes. I let the tannic acid cool and strained out the leaves. I then poured the mixture into a plastic cat litter box that I had cleaned and prepared.
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| Freshly picked sumac leaves & Berries The berries are for dyeing. Use only the leaves. |
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| Simmering Sumac Leaves |
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| Tannic Acid Bath |
I placed the used white cotton napkins. I soaked them for 30 minutes in a tub of water and then gently squeezed out the excess water. I carefully placed them in the tannic acid mordant and pushed the fabric down into the liquid with a wooden chopstick. Then I closed the lid and let them sit overnight. The next day I removed them and rinsed them out. And lined dried them for several days. I let them 'cure' a bit before dyeing. I read that tannic acid will slightly yellow the cotton. It did and it also left a marbled effect on the fabric which played out in the dyeing process. ***Wear Rubber Gloves during this process!!
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| White Cotton After Tannic Acid Bath |
It was interesting to try sumac leaves as a tannic acid. Since it is now winter and I cannot get anymore I ended up ordering a tannic acid powder made from chestnut bark from an online dye shop. I will see how that goes and make a short blog about that too.
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