How to Make a Tin Mordant

A Tin (stannous chloride) mordant can be used to obtain different colour variations than Alum (another commonly used mordant for natural dyeing.

Difficulty Level:
Average
Time Required:
90 minutes
Here’s How:

1. Use clean, scoured wool or yarn.
2. Fill a large pot with clean water and heat.
3. Weigh the yarn or clean, dry fleece.
4. Using .5% Tin to weight of fibre, mix the Tin into the hot water.
5. Rinse the wool so that it is damp.
6. Add the wool or skeins of yarn into the hot Tin mordant mixture.
7. Make sure that the wool is all covered by the water, if not, add more water to the pot.
8. Simmer the mordant mixture for x-about an hour at 90 degrees Celsius.
9. Remove the yarns from the Tin mixture.
10. The Tin mordant mixture can be reused by adding 1/2 the amount of Tin as previously used.

Tips:

1. If dyeing skeins of yarn, make sure that the skeins are tied securely, but loosely in at least 3 places, to avoid tangling.
2. The mordanted yarns can be dyed immediately, or dried and stored for later natural dyeing.
3. The Tin mordant mixture is suitable for wools, silks and other protein fibres.