Sumac Flower Dye – Salmon Pink

SUMAC Flower seeds silk dye Salmon Pink Terracotta

Good strong tones achieved with modifiers.  [See notebook image above.]  I chose to simply use alum sulphate as a pre-mordant (which matches my silk pieces, although no mordant at all (centre test sample), would be fine.  An interesting change from predominant salmon pink, is the pale straw sample, modified with Sodium Bicarbonate, (alkaline). This stops the pink coming through, but Sumac is more valuable for the stronger terracotta pinks.

Shetland wool was soaked in dye jar, but probably not mordanted, and has oils in (must be alkaline), which prevented the pink shades.  Shetland wool, dyed ginger was found in previous year's jar of Sumac dye!  Worth leaving wool in for longer after dyeing silk pieces.

Sumac flower spikes start deep red, but these were picked when turned russet, in October.  Soak flowers in water until dye appears. I left these for a few weeks before adding fabric.  Silks Habotai and Erin were soaked for a few days amongst the flower seeds. They took up dye quickly, but I wanted to make sure they got as strong as possible.