How to Mordant Cotton
a) Mordanting Cotton with Aluminium Acetate (this page)
b) Mordanting Cotton with the 3 step process (opens a new page)
Now that you have scoured your cotton, you are ready to start mordanting it.
Use no more than 100 grams of fibre in a ten litre saucepan. By fibre I mean fabric, yarn, or cotton sliver from a specialist shop. If you use more than 10 grams of fibre per litre, you will find it difficult to stir the fibres in the dye pot, and the mordant will not penetrate well. A ten litre saucepan is quite heavy to lift, and I would not want to use a pot any bigger than that.
You now need to choose which method to use for mordanting, either with aluminium acetate or using the three-step process. Using aluminium acetate is quicker, as you only need to make one mordant bath which means you will also use less energy. Aluminium acetate is also cheaper, even though it costs more than alum, as you will be using only 5 grams of aluminium acetate instead of 50 grams of alum.
After mordanting, you can either dry the cotton and store it for later use, or use it now. Either way, make sure you rinse the cotton well to remove any unfixed mordant before you dye.
a) Mordanting cotton with aluminium acetate
Aluminium acetate is recommended by Liles for plant fibres. This method seems to yield deeper and clearer colours, as it uses no tannin which can slightly yellow the fibres. It also has the advantage of using only one ingredient and one mordant bath.
Note: aluminium acetate is a very fine powder, weigh it carefully and use a mask when weighing fine powders.
Buy a 3M face mask here
You will need;
5 grams of aluminium acetate
100 grams of cotton
- Soak 100 grams of cotton fibres in warm water for at least two hours.
- Half fill the dye pot with water
- Dissolve the aluminium acetate in a small container with boiling water.
- Add the dissolved aluminium acetate to the dye pot and stir.
- Add the cotton and keep on simmer for an hour, stirring from time to time. Turn off the heat and leave overnight. Wring well and dry. Liles recommends waiting until the vinegar smell has disappeared, which he says can take up to 4 days.
- When you are ready to dye, rinse the fibre carefully to remove any unattached mordant.
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How to scour cotton
How to mordant cotton
b) Mordanting with the 3-step process
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