Suoh (蘇芳) - Sappan wood dye
Wool tops ready to spin and silk-mohair cobweb weight yarn, dyed with sappan wood chip dye.
Today I’m dyeing with Suoh - Sappan wood chips an ancient dye material that gives a beautiful range of pinks and soft reds. I'm working with 100g of sappan wood chips, made into one dye bath and I'm dyeing three 50g pieces of wool top along with two 25g hanks of silk-mohair.
I pre-mordant all fibres with 10% alum and 8% cream of tartar. After mordanting, I let everything dry thoroughly before dyeing. I'm using my little electric cooktop (reserved for dyeing), and later, my AC fireplace with its wide cast iron top—perfect for long, even heating.
First Dye Bath (wool #1)
I soak 100g of sappan wood chips in water for just 30 minutes, my first time using this dye material, not yet knowing it needs a long soak before use. Then I strain out the wood chips and add 50g mordanted wool top and one of the 25g silk-mohair hanks. I heat gently, keeping the temperature around 70°C. After about an hour, I remove the fibres.
The colour is soft and warm—almost a peachy orange. The orangey cling peach type I devoured as a child on summer caravan holidays at Onrus in the Cape. It’s lovely, though not as intense as I expected from sappan wood. I suspect and learn that the short soak, and low heat limited the pigment release.
Second Dye Bath (wool #2)
Later that day, I return to the same pot of dye. This time, I place it on the cast iron top of the Esse woodfired fireplace, which runs beautifully warm on these cold winter evenings in Emerald. The heat sits around the high 70s to possibly 80°C, but never boils. It’s a thin-walled large aluminium pot which doesn’t retain heat. I leave the dye pot there for a few hours, checking regularly out of curiosity, with a new 50g wool top and no added wood chip.
The colour deepens dramatically - this batch yields a much richer pink, almost like a carnation or camelia that’s in bloom in our garden in winter. It's still subtle and soft, but there’s a clear shift: longer heating, even from already-used dye liquor, makes a noticeable difference.
Third Dye Bath (Re-extracted Dye) (wool #3)
Before bed, I return the original 100g of sappan wood chips to the same pot of dye liquid. The wood sits in the gently steaming bath on the fireplace overnight – maybe 8 hours. By morning, the fireplace is cooling, but the water is a deep, almost crimson pink - finally, the colour I’d hoped to see.
I strain out the wood chips and add a third 50g piece of wool. This time, I use the electric cooktop again as the fire is cool, and the pot accidentally comes to a strong simmer - but the colour holds beautifully. This third batch is even stronger than the second, slightly redder.
Later, I add the second silk-mohair hank to the same bath and let it gently cool in the pot. It's taken on that lovely deep carnation hue.
Suoh - Sappan wood dyed wool top in order of dyeing using the same dye pot: Dye pot #1, #2 and #3 the darkest and the last! Lots of learning using sappan wood dye.
Fourth Dye Bath – the dye pot that keeps getting stronger!
With colour still I the dye pot, I added a third hank of the silk-mohair, but as the hank hadn’t been mordanted yet, I added the dissolved alum and cream of tartar directly to the dye pot. The colour instantly changed to a purple beetroot colour, completely unexpected. After leaving the skein to heat and process the colour, I now have a maroon, purple colour – a completely different tone to the other colours. I suspect that the Ph must have shifted when I added the mordent directly to the pot. So lots of variety and learning from the original 100gs of sappan wood chip.
Final Notes
All fibres are pre-mordanted with alum (10%) and cream of tartar (8%) – except the last which was mordanted in the dye pot.
After dyeing, I let each fibre dry completely before rinsing.
The dyed wool and silk-mohair pieces are washed with a tiny squirt of dish soap, with no noticeable colour loss.
The dried fibres are now hanging - glowing shades of soft orange and pink, deepening through the sequence of extraction.
Reflections
This has been a fascinating lesson in extraction time and heat. Sappan wood rewards patience - its deeper pinks and crimson tones emerge only after a long soak and sustained heat just below a simmer. That rich bath in the morning, drawn from a long slow cook of re-used wood, feels like the most successful moment of the project so far.
I’m tempted to try this again with an even longer soak upfront - maybe overnight - and keep everything just under simmer for several hours. The magic is there; it just takes time to coax it out.