SOYA MILK, SODA ASH AND IRON

We have been doing lots and lots of experimenting over at the Four Rabbit studio. 

We recently purchased the ebook, Botanical Colour at Your Fingertips by Rebecca Desnos. Its packed full of knowledge and beautiful photographs and is an incredible resource for anyone interested in natural dyeing. The book is available at etsy.com 

Rebecca talks about using soya milk as a mordant. Being that it is completely chemical free and will turn a cellulose fabric into a protein like fabric.  

We used her soya milk method to mordant a few cotton muslin shift dresses. Our dresses took on a few soya milk dips, then kept for a week before dyeing. Letting the soya milk proteins bind to the cotton fibers. The dresses were then dyed with madder root. 

The madder seemed to bind well to the cotton and we had two beautiful blush pink dresses. To enhance the pink color, we re soaked the dresses again using the exhausted dye mixed with soda ash. 

After a bit more experimenting with a iron post mordant, we realized that painting with the iron water yielded some pretty fantastic results. 

We will continue to experiment with this "painting" method and keep you posted. Follow us on instagram @four.rabbit for daily updates.