Magenta and Sappanwood Surprise

Deep pink or red shades have been missing from our colour pallet so in January 2023 I decided to explore the potential of Sappanwood extract.

I read that this comes from the heartwood of a tree and is related to logwood which I often use to give shades of purple and violet.

I sourced the extract from wildcolours.co.uk and followed the recipe on their excellent web site. I learnt that the dye gives different shades at alkaline and neutral to acid pH and as I was seeking a raspberry shade I added a teaspoon of sodium carbonate to a small dyebath to take 3 x 25g skeins of previously mordanted yarn.

This first bath resulted in a pretty good brickish red, quite useful I thought but not exciting! I added more extract and sodium carbonate but made the mistake of overloading the dye bath with my fresh batch of yarn. This resulted in a disappointing poorly dyed pinkish peach.

Rapping myself on the knuckles I followed the wild colour instruction to remordant the yarn before attempting to achieve a deeper colour.

Imagine my surprise when the (disappointing) yarn in the mordant changed from brickish red to magenta shades which, absolutely, were exciting.

I am hoping to use these, complemented with the purple logwood and the pale green pomegranate with iron additive. A lovely addition for 2023.

Note to dyers: I am finding that a return to the alum mordant bath post the dye bath considerably enhances and freshens the colour. I believe this works with logwood and indigo and gives avery 'clean' yarn as a result.