Mordant Archives - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

Why is there a touch of March madness in my life?

March. Spring is in the air. It certainly seemed that way last weekend as I sat in the garden in the sun. Lots and lots of gardening to do as well. The madness started actually a few weeks ago when I was introduced to a free internet course by my husband. The course by Jodie King was about how to use Instagram better as an artist. There were some great tips and lots of great people to interact with. So I started paying a bit more attention to Instagram. I learnt about stories and reels and rewrote my bio. I also started posting more frequently. My daughter and husband are taking part in #the100dayproject challenge so I started watching the posts and wondering why I wasn't taking part ? Then I noticed that it would soon be #MendingMarch on Instagram. Well, I am a bit of a mender trying to do my…

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07/03/2021

Eco Dyeing / eco printing / Fabric / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Textile art

It’s time to organise my white fabric stash

Both natural dyeing and eco printing require white fabric and I have been building a disorganised stash. I bought a lot of old tablecloths from the local charity shop during 2019 and early 2020 and mordanted most of it. I even have a stash inventory from about a year ago. Meaningless really as I have not updated it. I stored my stash in numerous plastic blags and in an old blanket chest I got from my mother. Last year in the first lockdown I sewed scrubs for the local hospital and I volunteered to take all the white sheeting we were given, as it wasn’t suitable for making scrubs. This has added to the significantly to the stash. And of course, I have bought lengths of fabric to supplement the recycled material. I have kept my small quantity of silk fabric separate from the rest, and for now, I am not sorting…

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28/02/2021

Eco Dyeing / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Walnut / Wet felting

Walnuts are not just for eating

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be given some green walnuts. I had never used walnuts for dyeing before. It was a bit of a puzzle to me as to what part of the walnuts I should use for dyeing. Should I use them whole or chop them up.? I checked in Jenny Deans book Wild Colour and realised I should use the whole green walnut . So I just randomly chopped the green casing away from the walnuts shell and placed the chopped up mixture in the dye pot. I did not remove the nuts. After a short time of simmering the solution was a delicious brown colour. I kept it simple and only dyed wool fibres, silk thread and a small piece of silk fabric. The wool fibre , which was Wensleydale long wool , had been mordanted with Alum. The wool dyed brilliantly with the…

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23/09/2017

Alum / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Yorkshire

Just on my doorstep

Since I moved back to the UK I have been pondering a theme for a series of local felt pieces. I now live on the edge of the North York moors a really beautiful area with a fantastic coast line which has a really interesting industrial heritage. In the photo above you can see the costal town of Staithes with the Boulby cliffs in the background. My first thoughts on a theme were something related to the mining of ironstone in the area and the subsequent development of the steel industry, which has sadly recently closed. Whilst researching I came across another older industry that is far more directly related to my work. I discovered that during the reign of Henry VIII , a local source of Alum which was critical to the textile industry as a mordant was sought in order to break the papal monopoly. This was in the 16th…

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07/08/2016

Eco Dyeing / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Uncategorized

My First solo attempt at Eco dyeing

Following on from the fantastic Ecodyeing workshop I went on , I decided I would try and put what I learnt into practise with plants from my own garden. First I made up a dye bath with Elderberry leaves and stems. I think it would have been better if I had not included the woody stems , as I felt they were just taking space and not really contributing. I made fours bundles, one silk noil, two from mordanted cotton and one from a piece of felt that had previously been dyed with alder. Here are three of them waiting to be untied. My results are not very fantastic , but it was only my first attempt. This is a cotton piece with a copper rod , quite bright greens , from the copper I think and lots of blotches from the onions pieces. Here the piece dried. One of the cotton…

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17/07/2016

Eco Dyeing / jewellery / machine stitching / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Eucalyptus

I have naturally dyed a number of large felt pieces but never tried dying jewellery until this week , it has also been my first experience of dyeing with eucalyptus as I was recently given some leaves. I have made lots of jewellery , mostly brooches , and I intend to dye them in matches in different colours. This time it was the turn of eucalyptus. Here is all the jewellery being made. A lot of circles cut out . Various fabrics stitching and resists added. The collection drying in the sunshine . A choose three to dye on this occasion , adding some cotton and silk machine stitching before dyeing. Looking good but without a lot of difference in the colours between the different fibres so I decided to modified the pieces with iron. The iron really changes the colours. The silk has become a lot more coppery , and the linen…

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24/04/2016

British wool fibres / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Boring but ……

Over the last few months I have made quite a number of wet felted small vessels. These vessels have been made out of different white fibers and then dyed. At the time I made them I knew exactly what I had done , but coming back to them a few weeks later and I began to get seriously muddled up . I was no longer sure which was the nettled dyed BFL , or the nettled dyed Polwarth ( Thanks to Teri Berry for these fibers they are great) Time to take control and keep on track before I was totally confused. Better admin was an urgent necessity? So I gave each vessel a reference number and a small label with the critical information. And I started I vessel register on a spreadsheet. This feels a bit like work But I know that the key to being able to reproduce…

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01/08/2015

Eco Dyeing / Mordant / Natural dyeing

Stocking up

Over the last few months I have been foraging and collecting and stocking up on materials I can use for dyeing in the future. Whilst walking I have been picking up lichen that has been washed off the trees by the rain and now have a small collection of two varieties. I have still to research what colours these will yield. I found some fallen down tree branches and collected some silver birch bark . I am hoping this will give a beautiful pink colours. Both in the UK and in the Netherlands , I have found is very easy to collect alder cones especially after all the heavy rain we have been having. These can be used as a mordant , or a dye. Only a few months ago I don't think I really knew what these were. ! I harvested some young bracken shoots and some dock leaves , which…

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30/07/2015