A Nerd’s Guide to Mordants

This is the nerd’s guide to mordants – what they are, why they are important and how they are used in natural dyeing. Everyone wants to create long-lasting and beautiful plant color and the best way to do that is to mordant properly.  The class will experiment with the most popular plant-based tannins and alum accumulators, mineral salt mordants and other binders to see the effects on animal and plant fibers. Each mordant variable will be dyed so that we can see results and we will build a reference folio for students to take with them as a record of their experiments. We will emphasize how to use mordants safely to create incredible color variables.

Through our experiments, we will gain insight into the relationship between the mordant, the dye and other ways we can coax color onto cloth.  At the conclusion of the workshop, students will have a clear understanding of which mordant to use, and when to follow the rules and when to bend them a bit. The class will work with cotton, linen and silk fabric. Depending on our group, we may have time left to try out your own experiments as well!  This workshop is open to all levels.

Skills and Techniques:

• Fabric evaluation and selection
• Fabric preparation – choosing scouring and mordanting
• Mordanting a variety of fibers including plant and protein-based
• Comparing different mordants and fibers
• Understanding mordant results and how to modify them

Materials Fee: $80 paid directly to the instructor at time of workshop.

Special Tools or Equipment: None

Workshop Policies: Please be sure to read our 2025 policies before you register for a workshop which can be found here Workshop Policies