Madder is a white whale for me. Or, to be more specifically, a lovely, deep pure madder red is my white whale. Trying to achieve that colour really was the catalyst for my experiments with tannins and mordants, and like oh-so-many natural dyers, the idea of getting the clean, perfect red feels like a badge of honour when you finally get it right. I’m still trying to get there.
I specified Dyer’s Madder in this post because there are two madders widely available, and I wanted to do tests with both. I ended up with 20 different samples all together; ten each of Dyer’s madder (R. tinctorum) and Indian madder (R. cordifolia). I’m going to split them up into two posts, and then I’ll post a comparative of all 20 together.
I have less experience with Dyer’s madder, which so happens to be the pickier of the two, so this was a good exercise. I used 100% WOF for the madder, which I had begun extracting the night before. This was my first time doing such an intensive extraction of madder; normally I extract for a few hours on heat (generally around 3 hours, but up to 5) then dye, all in the same day. I first heated the ground root to 65C slowly, then allowed to simmer for 3 hours. I then allowed it to cool, and sat in the water overnight. The next morning I brought up the heat slowly again, simmered for another 2 hours, then strained the dyestuff out. I dyed the cloth for 4 hours at a stable 65C. I tested my water so that the pH was neutral at 7. I used city water; Edmonton is notoriously known for its hard city water, so I didn’t add any additional calcium to harden it.
A quick note here to say I always strain out my actual dyestuff; I like to get an even colour, and if you leave dyestuff in your bath, you will get spots where its touching the fabric. If you love that imperfection, go for it, but it’s not something I generally do. Instead of straining you can also put your dyestuff in woven cloth, or several layers of cheesecloth (especially if powdered, one layer will just have it leak into your bath). I use that method when I have a larger pot going so I’m not trying to wrangle incredibly large, heavy pots full of water.
Top row, L-R:
Sumac, gallnut, cutch, myrobalan, tannin blend on alum/soda ash mordant
Bottom row, L-R:
Sumac, gallnut, cutch, myrobalan, tannin blend on alum acetate with a chalk fix afterbath
(To see the ratios and how I dealt with the tannins and mordants, please see the first post here).
The sumac and tannin blend (which includes sumac) gave the madder a purple hue, while the myrobalan gave it a yellow one. The cutch gave a deeper shade, while the gallnut gave what is closest to a true red. The myrobalan and aluminum acetate probably gave the least rich depth of shade, while the other sample’s depths are all relatively the same, with gallnut and alum being slightly more saturated than the others.
My favourites are probably the sumac and the gallnut, both using the alum/soda ash. Honestly all being equal, I prefer to use alum/soda ash and will go to that if the mordant isn’t affecting the colour too much. The gallnut, being the clearest, is rather my default. But the purple hue of the sumac I have found quite enticing, and I’ll likely do some more dyeing using that combo in the future.
For the wool samples, it’s 100% WOF on white wool, 100% WOF on grey wool, and then exhaust bath. It’s funny how much more orange it is on the wool, and I’ll reiterate, the two 100% WOF samples were in the same dye pot as the cotton.
Next up: Indian madder (R. cordifolia). Spoiler alert: I like it better.
This is part 3 of a several (on-going) part series. You can see the whole series as they get discussed here.