Carrier Cloth (Iron Blanket)

Pat Spark Updated June, 2018

A carrier cloth is a way of transferring (carrying) a dye, mordant or other additive to the cloth you are
wanting to dye. This “cloth” is often dipped, soaked or simmered in the substance and then placed onto
the project. Then the sandwiched cloths are bundled and steamed, often with leaves between them to
create botanical prints. The steaming transfers the new substance over to the cloth in your project. In the
case of an iron blanket (iron carrier), it can be made as described in the paragraph below.
Some substances that can be carried to the project include: other natural dyes, such as cochineal
(the project would likely need to be mordanted to accept the new dye color); tannin; rusty iron (ferrous
acetate); regular iron (ferrous sulfate); acid dye (if dyeing protein fibers).
The cloth doesn’t have to actually be “cloth” at all. Some people use paper towels for this. And
the carrier doesn’t need to cover the whole project. Potentially, you can cut out shapes and place them
over your project in order to get some areas with the carried substance and some areas without it. For
instance tannin and iron create a greyish black. So in theory, the project could be iron mordanted and
shapes could be cut out of a tannin dipped carrier and laid onto the iron mordanted project. After
bundling and steaming, the areas where the iron and tannin come together would be a different a greyish
black. A variation of this is to dye a fabric with cochineal or madder and then to lay a carrier cloth which
has been dipped in an iron solution onto the dyed fabric. The reddish color will stay the same where
leaves or other resist shapes are placed between the iron carrier and the dyed cloth. But where the iron
carrier touches the dye, the reddish color will become darker, more maroon.
You can even use two silk scarves as each other blankets, with leaves or other resist designs in
between, with each scarf pre-dipped in mordant or dye. This way you can get two scarves with one
bundling! It is fun to experiment and try different substances with carriers. The carrier is just a way to
add a substance onto the surface of the textile you are printing onto.

Making an iron carrier cloth:

1. You can also use iron water made from ferrous sulfate powder. There are various recipes for this,
ranging from ½ tsp to 2 tsp per gallon of water. Some people use more water, some use less.

More on Using Carriers (Blankets)

Pat Spark, June 2018

A little on the back story of using a dye carrier:

I first learned about using carriers in the 70's when people were using carriers in the dye-sublimation
process to print onto polyester. Then more recently, people in the natural dyeing/printing world started
to talk about using cloth or paper to carry dye, mordant, or additives to the ground cloth so that you
wouldn't need to submerge the cloth to get the color onto it, but could use the pressure, heat and
moisture from the bundling process to get the substance to transfer from the carrier to the ground.
So the idea behind using carriers is to “carry” a substance to the cloth where you are wanting to
create a color change. This has many possibilities but if a person understands the concept behind a
technique, it is then experimentation that will make it uniquely one's own.