dyeing-msg - 3/19/08 Dyeing techniques and discussion. Both modern and period dyes. NOTE: See also the files: green-art, mordants-msg, washing-msg, woad-msg. KEYWORDS: dyes dyeing medieval mordants woad indigo madder saffron lichens techniques overdyeing ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: lisch at mentor.com (Ray Lischner) Date: 17 Jan 90 22:14:29 GMT Organization: Mentor Graphics Corp., Beaverton, OR Newsgroups: rec.org.sca My lady wife, aoibhinn ni luan, recommends "A Weaver's Garden," by Rita Buchanan (1987, Interweave Press, ISBN 0-934026-28-9). A Weaver's Garden covers the use of plants in fabric making, including dyeing. The time period covered includes the SCA period, and more. Included are some color pictures of the results, showing that diverse, bright colors can be obtained from period dyes. Not all natural dyes are period, and Ms. Buchanan mentions the history of the plants and their uses. There are also chapters on using plants for cleaning, plants as used in tools (such as Fullers' Teasle for carding wool), and making your own garden. The references and suggested readings include technical articles for those who are interested in chemistry. -- Ray Lischner UUCP: {uunet,decwrl}!mntgfx!lisch From: DICKSNR at qucdn.queensu.ca ("Ross M. Dickson") Date: 20 Jan 91 18:16:00 GMT Greetings to the Rialto from Sarra Graeham, courtesy of Lord Angus: In Digest v.4 no.25, Herr Peder Klingrode (Leif Euren) writes: > In fact, in the early Middle Ages, blue dye for textiles were hard > (not to say impossible) to get, while green was easy to come by; while > quite the opposite was true for paints. Thus, a person with a Azure > coat-of-arms wore a green tabard and flew a green flag: the colours > were considered equal. My knowledge of the several technologies that Herr Peder brings together here are not perfect, but my gut reaction is that this statement is an example of modern misunderstanding of period technologies. First off, it is my understanding that the woad plant, which produces a dye chemically identical to indigo, was available and used as a dye in the British Isles from well before the Roman times. (Can someone correct me on this? I have references to it being used as a pigment from the 9th C.) I'm sure that woad or indigo, indigo having been imported since at least the first Crusade, was used in the Bayeux Tapestry to produce a slightly greenish -- but unmistakable -- blue. Furthermore, most blue pigments available for painting at that time -- indigo, azurite, copper blues -- had more or less greenish casts, so a greenish-blue dye would not be con- sidered out of place. So-called azure or ultramarine blue, made of ground and processed lapis lazuli, could not be manufactured in Europe until the 13th C., and was an imported luxury until that time. Secondly, "coats-of-arms" as such did not really exist until the mid to late 12th C. Admittedly, great lords probably had battle flags and livery colours before then, but not in the same profusion. (Perhaps one or more of the heralds on the net could provide better information.) By the 12th C., indigo dye was available all over Europe. In fact, I have been told by dyers that good greens are much harder to get than blues, given the availability of indigo, and indigo dye with an overdyeing of yellow is necessary to be able to make the best greens. Herr Peder (or anyone else who might be listening), do you have more evi- dence to support your statement? My case is merely circumstantial, and I would happily be corrected by someone who knew better. Sarra Graeham, Canton of Greyfells | Heather Fraser Barony of the Skraeling Althing | Kingston, Ontario, CANADA Principality of Ealdormere, Midrealm | c/o dicksnr at qucdn.queensu.ca From: pears at latcs1.oz.au (Arnold N Pears) Date: 21 Jan 91 05:52:43 GMT Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia timm at hoss.unl.edu (Tim Myers) writes: >everyone. Then we hit upon an idea, DMC floss is very consistent in its >colors and numbering scheme, and you can find DMC floss all over the place. >What would happen if kingdom level sewing guild got together with the >current royalty and heirs and decided what OFFICIAL CALONTIR PURPURE AND OR >were? Especially since there was a request a twelfth night for more Calontir >fighting tabards. Wouldn't it be nice if they all looked the same? While the idea of uniformity is attractive to the modern eye, I suspect that in the SCA period, even if you take it to extend from 600-1650AD, the colour of cloth would have varied considerably from batch to batch. The dyeing of cloth with natural dyes is a complex task, and fixing some of the more rare colours, such as purple, made them expensive during the mediaeval period. I find it difficult to believe that any group prior to the 18th century would have placed much importance on the exact shade. To do so would require the establishment of uniforms and hence bulk production of cloth for a specific purpose, which to the best of my knowledge is really outside the scope of the recreation. I suggest you all just buy local purple, as you would have done in the period, and pride yourselves on the period look of your soldiery. Lord Arenwald von Hagenburg ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Arnold Pears. Computer Sci Dept ACSNET : pears at latcs1.oz La Trobe Uni, Bundoora 3083. VIC, AUSTRALIA "Well here we all are then." Ph (03) 479-1144 -ME ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: bloch at thor.ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch) Date: 21 Jan 91 07:37:19 GMT DICKSNR at qucdn.queensu.ca (Ross M. Dickson, really Sarra Greaham) writes: >First off, it is my understanding that the woad plant, which produces a >dye chemically identical to indigo.... "Blue may be dyed with woad alone, which would give a permanent but not a deep blue; but if indigo be mixed with it, a very rich colour will be obtained." "Take a quarter of a pound of indigo, half a pound of pot ash, a quarter of a pound of madder, and three handfuls of bran: let them boil for half an hour, and then settle; with this ley grind the indigo in a copper bowl: put this in an old vat of indigo, or on a new one of woad, and it will make it fit for use in twenty-four hours." >Furthermore, most blue pigments >available for painting at that time -- indigo, azurite, copper blues -- >had more or less greenish casts, so a greenish-blue dye would not be con- >sidered out of place. "Receipt to dye 8 lbs. of Deep Blue in Linen or Cotton. Take 4 ounces of indigo and grind fine, 2 ounces of madder, 8 ounces of copperas, 8 ounces of pot ash, 4 ounces of lime, and 1 ounce of alum: mix it all together with 5 gallons of soft water...." >In fact, I have been told >by dyers that good greens are much harder to get than blues, given the >availability of indigo, and indigo dye with an overdyeing of yellow is >necessary to be able to make the best greens. "To dye Cotton Yarn a Deep Blue. Take one pound of logwood chipped fine or pounded and boil it in a sufficient quantity of water till the whole colouring matter is extracted, then take about half a gallon of this liquor and dissolve it in an ounce of verdigris ... or if you want an elegant green, boil hickory bark in the liquor and it will produce it." "Saxon greens" are produced by dying with indigo sulphate after a tin-and-oak-bark mordant. Three other greens, however, are described as a blue dye followed by a yellow, or vice versa. All quotations are taken from "The Arcana of Arts and Sciences", by M. Parker; this is a primary source, but only from 1824, and written in the U.S. so some of the plants may not exist in Europe. -- Stephen Bloch Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib >sca>Caid>Calafia>St.Artemas bloch at cs.ucsd.edu From: leeu at alex.stacken.kth.se (Leif Euren) Date: 21 Jan 91 09:02:09 GMT Organization: The Internet Berengaria ( (Jeanne C. Stapleton)) writeth: > ... I like the idea of telling people to match to a particular color > of DMC embroidery floss. Reason: have you ever looked through your > kingdom's regalia? There are several sets of surcoats/cloaks/etc. > in the West Kingdom Regalia, most of which never get worn, largely > because a hideous shade of green was used in their construction. It's sad to see regaila unused, beacuse our modern eyes think the colours are "hideous". On the other hand: people in the Middle Ages would have loved yarn and cloth of consistent colour. > Think how much easier looking for "DMC #345" would be for local > costumers trying to make surcoats for members of their shire or barony > who were to be part of a kingdom levy or shieldwall. The color would > be instantly identifiable to anyone glancing around as "part of my unit". As it were (and this is my speculation) they reduced the numbers of heraldic colours to allow for deviation, so that and soldier could tell a friend, even if he had changed to a new tabard. Thus, I don't see any fault in recommending a shade-by-number for "official" items; be it paint, dyed textile or others. We shouldn't make it a law, though. Elaine NicMaoilan ( (Edward Fitzgerald)) writeth: > ... I find it hard to believe consistency was not possible, within > reason, in period! (Not perfect matches, perhaps, but close enough > for the casual observer to not see a glaring difference....) Surely > weavers traded formulae and hanks of threads as samples? Consistency in shade of colour is *VERY* difficult to obtain if one has to resort to plant-dying, even in our Current Middle Ages, when we in fact know how to make pecise records of previous dyings. And in the real Middle Ages, dyers did *NOT* trade their formulaes, as they were their wealth. But the again, shades "close enough for the casual observer to not see a glaring difference" would be the pride of every master dyer, and they certainly did appear during the Middle Ages. Herr Peder Klingrode +---------------------------+ Canton of Holmgard | Leif Euren | Barony of Nordmark | | Principality of Drachenwald | leeu at alex.stacken.kth.se | Kingdom of the East +---------------------------+ From: leeu at alex.stacken.kth.se (Leif Euren) Date: 21 Jan 91 17:55:42 GMT Herr Peder Klingrode greets all Gentle of the Rialto: Frid vare med Eder! Lord Arenwald von Hagenburg (pears at latcs1.oz.au (Arnold N Pears)) writeth: > I find it difficult to believe that any group prior to the 18th > century would have placed much importance on the exact shade. So do I, but I also argue that a person who could afford to outfit his entire staff in a uniformly coloured livery, would do so to show off his wealth: everybody could see that he had bought all that fabric at the same time! Sarra Graeham (Heather Fraser) writeth: > ... the woad plant, which produces a dye chemically identical to > indigo, was available and used as a dye in the British Isles from well > before the Roman times. And it was used in Scandinavia, too, in the 10th C. > I'm sure that woad or indigo <...> produce a slightly greenish -- but > unmistakable -- blue. Depending of what kind of metal the kettle is of, you may get many strange shades when dying with indigo. > In fact, I have been told by dyers that good greens are much harder to > get than blues, given the availability of indigo, and indigo dye with > an overdyeing of yellow is necessary to be able to make the best > greens. If you (or rather, the dyers) by "good greens" mean "_beautiful_ greens", you're absolutely right. And this is not even subjectively: everybody (well, _almost_ everybody) will admit that yellow over- coloured with indigo is more beautiful than naturally dyed green. > Herr Peder, do you have more evidence to support your statement? I'm sorry to say that I no evidence for my statements; it was just something I read in a book on Heraldry, and I don't even remember which (I'll have a look in my library, and I'll be back with a reference if I find one). I, too, would happily be corrected by someone who knew better. > ... ground and processed lapis lazuli, could not be manufactured in > Europe until the 13th C. I don't really believe you. But then again, I may be wrong. Could you explain why this was so? Herr Peder Klingrode, Canton of Holmgard | Leif Euren Barony of Nordmark | Stockholm, Sweden Principality of Drachenwald, East | leeu at alex.stacken.kth.se From: Chaz Butler To: "Ross M. Dickson Date: 23-Jan-91 04:59pm Subject: Re: 'official' colors There is a woman at Pennsic every year with a dyer's wheel. This has formula from plants native to Britain and Europe fixed with various mineral salts. The colors range from 5 shades of magenta, through hot pinks, bright oranges, lime and electric greens, vivid blues, indigos, electric blues, and deep purples, as well as browns and puces. If she, with only a couple of years of experimenting with plants native to Europe and a dyer's cloth can come up with many shades, and duplicate them, then the dyers of Europe surely did the same. From: haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock) Date: 22 Jan 91 18:39:04 GMT Organization: DECwest, Digital Equipment Corp., Bellevue WA In article <9101210902.AAalex.stacken.kth.se22365 at alex.stacken.kth.se>, leeu at alex.stacken.kth.se (Leif Euren) writes: > Berengaria ( (Jeanne C. Stapleton)) writeth: > > ... I like the idea of telling people to match to a particular color > > of DMC embroidery floss. > > Elaine NicMaoilan ( (Edward Fitzgerald)) writeth: > > ... I find it hard to believe consistency was not possible, within > > reason, in period! > > But the again, shades "close enough for the casual observer to not see > a glaring difference" would be the pride of every master dyer, and > they certainly did appear during the Middle Ages. I have seen the effects of dying a series of hanks in the same dye bath, they all came out a different shade and the dyer admitted that predicting the shade was next to impossible. I take this as evidence that reproducing a shade was and is so difficult as to be futile to attempt. A close match should be fairly simple, provided that only one dye bath is needed. Overdying such as has been mentioned for green would make a close much very difficult. The next thing to remember is that period dyes are rarely 'fast'. Most dyes will fade in the sun, leach in the washing and bleed into the adjacent cloth. A set of tabards will age the same only if they were all made of the same materials, dyed using the processes. Given the multitude of processes to obtain specific colours, and the inherent secrecy of the dyers, it is highly unlikely that cloth from different sources will behave in the same way. I harbour a deep suspiscion that the ancient tartans of complex design were originally of simple design but suffered badly from bleeding of dyes before someone recorded the design. I suspect that the concept of fimbriation originated in the same way. The existance of fast bright colours is relatively modern but deeply ingrained in our culture. Plastics and cartoons are the biggest culprits as far as I am concerned. Fiacha Aquaterra, AnTir From: atterlep at vela.acs.oakland.edu (Alan Terlep) Date: 22 Jan 91 15:37:22 GMT Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI leeu at alex.stacken.kth.se (Leif Euren) writes: >Berengaria ( (Jeanne C. Stapleton)) writeth: >> Think how much easier looking for "DMC #345" would be for local >> costumers trying to make surcoats for members of their shire or barony >> who were to be part of a kingdom levy or shieldwall. The color would >> be instantly identifiable to anyone glancing around as "part of my unit". > >As it were (and this is my speculation) they reduced the numbers of >heraldic colours to allow for deviation, so that and soldier could >tell a friend, even if he had changed to a new tabard. My first response on reading this was "arrgh!" The entire point of heraldry is to make sure that people are recognizable on the battlefield. If every member of a group is wearing their heraldic badge there should be no problem with identification. In fact, most of the heraldic devices and badges we get are rejected simply because they aren't clearly recognizable at a distance. Clarity is one of the prime criteria for deciding the acceptability of a piece of heraldry. That said, there are a limited number of colors for just the reason Herr Peter suggests. In fact, the variation possible in heraldic colors is circum- stantial evidence that there was difficulty in standardizing colors. It does bother me at times that I enjoy an art form whose spectrum is covered by a set of Crayola markers, but anyone who has seen the "Heraldry" in the Pern source- book (from a fantasy workd by Anne McCaffery) will understand the problems with "Per pale blue and light blue, in base an erupting volcano brown." Lord Fairfax Aluricson Canton of the Riding of Hawkland Moor Barony of Northwoods, Midrealm atterlep at vela.acs.oakland.edu From: com259h at vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au Date: 22 Jan 91 03:26:53 GMT leeu at alex.stacken.kth.se (Leif Euren) writes: > Elaine NicMaoilan ( (Edward Fitzgerald)) writeth: >> ... I find it hard to believe consistency was not possible, within >> reason, in period! (Not perfect matches, perhaps, but close enough >> for the casual observer to not see a glaring difference....) Surely >> weavers traded formulae and hanks of threads as samples? > > Consistency in shade of colour is *VERY* difficult to obtain if one > has to resort to plant-dying, even in our Current Middle Ages, when we > in fact know how to make pecise records of previous dyings. And in > the real Middle Ages, dyers did *NOT* trade their formulaes, as they > were their wealth. My own affermation of this is mundane, but I think relevant. An uncle of my mother worked for a textile company which performed all of it's own dying, using dyes that it developed itself. My great-uncle was involved in the formulating of these dyes and kept 2 books of the dye formulas. One book was the correct one which he worked from and was kept under strict security. The other book was not kept under strict security, and the formulas were incorrect. This was the version which my uncle's employer preferred his competitors to see. Were I a period weaver who had developed a particularly appealing color, I'd try to keep it's formula, and hence the supply of cloth of that color to myself. Why provide my competitors with income that should be mine through my developing said color. In service, Wulfgang Brachwalder. Bull at vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au OR com259h at monu1.cc.monash.oz Alias: Gareth Bull, The Opal Dragon From: BERDANJ at YALEVM.BITNET (Amoret of Dragonship Haven) Date: 24 Jan 91 14:40:39 GMT Amoret of Dragonship Haven sends greetings to the Rialto and two notes of interest.... 1) Modern-day dying cannot get consistent results from bolt to bolt of fabric either; it is usually necessary to buy all from one bolt in order to get a consistent color in a large quantity of fabric. This is a problem in everything from 100% cotton to 100% polyester. It is likewise a problem with thread - different spools of the "same" color are not necessarily identical. I find it unlikely, then, that period dyers could have gotten anything like perfect consistency from dye-lot to dye-lot. From: KGANDEK at mitvmc.mit.EDU (Kathryn Gandek) Date: 23 Jan 91 21:58:44 GMT Greetings from Catrin o'r Rhyd For After reading the speculation on dye consistency and dyer secretiveness, I asked a friend, Lady Elaine Courtenay, who has looked into period dying and has recreated period dye recipes. According to her research, dye recipes were carefully guarded and handed down from master to apprentice until the 16th century. During the 16th century, articles with dye recipes appear sporadically until 1548, when an entire book detailing dye recipes was published. So as far as secretiveness goes, it seems to be true until the 16th century. As far as consistency, Elaine had the following comments. The dyers worked with consistent methods and recipes. Furthermore, they knew about variations in ingredients dependent on from where they came. For example, it might take more cochineal to make a certain red if the cochineal came from place A instead of place B. Does that mean that they could replicate colors to the point of exact matches as in the aforementioned embroidery floss color example? She doesn't think they could have. On the other hand, she believes that they could have come quite close. In her own recreation of dyes, she has come up with very similar--although not identical--results, and she hasn't trained with a guild for years. Catrin (me) has one comment on the subject. As I usually prefer that yarn for a project I am making match exactly without variation, I buy it all out of the same batch. The differences are sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, but even modern technology doesn't always duplicate perfectly from batch to batch. Catrin o'r Rhyd For Kathryn Gandek Barony of Carolingia Boston area East Kingdom kgandek%mitvmc.bitnet at mitvma.mit.edu From: DICKSNR at qucdn.queensu.ca ("Ross M. Dickson") Date: 27 Jan 91 17:53:00 GMT Belated greetings to the Rialto from Sarra Graeham, who has been marking Grade 10 Science Exams, and hence has not been to the Rialto since last Sunday ... Herr Peder Klingrode (Leif Euren), quoting me, writes: > > ... ground and processed lapis lazuli, could not be manufactured in > > Europe until the 13th C. > I don't really believe you. But then again, I may be wrong. > Could you explain why this was so? Lapis lazuli, although a beautiful deep blue when unground, is mostly composed of a great deal of colourless stone interspersed with bits of deep blue. When ground and unprocessed, the pigment is a dull blueish grey, and water precipitation, the usual method for purifying pigments, won't separate out the blue. To separate the deep blue pigment requires "mixing the powdered lapis with a paste of wax and oil and resin, and kneading the mixture under water or lye until the blue came out in the water" (Daniel V. Thompson, _The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting_, Dover Books, 1956.) The paste would be put through several washes, with each wash becoming less blue than the last, and it was the custom of corrupt druggists of the 15th C. to sell bags of Ultramarine with the best blue on top, but the grey washings at the bottom. The earliest European recipes for doing this appear in the 13th C., al- though apparently the Persians had been making Ultramarine Blue since "early times" and exporting it to Europe. Just another example of how technologically advanced that part of the world was compared to Europe at the time. Sarra Graeham, Canton of Greyfells | Heather Fraser Barony of the Skraeling Althing | Kingston, Ontario, CANADA Principality of Ealdormere, Midrealm | c/o dicksnr at qucdn.queensu.ca From: 6790753%356_WEST_58TH_5TH_FL%NEW_YORK_NY%WNET_6790753 at mcimail.COM ("KATMAN.WNETS385") Date: 13 Jun 91 15:39:00 GMT Lady Therica amused us with a tale of documenting butter (and flavored butters) as used in period. She then tells of being told green is not period for clothes. There is a portrait by Raphael (I'll post the actual date if anyone needs it) painted sometime between 1450 and 1500 of "The Woman in Green." The painting has a few other titles, I forget them all. This is of an Italian woman wearing a GREEN dress. The dress is bottle green (looks like silk velvet, yum) with rusty colored trim at the neck and shoulders, and large dark blue over sleeves. It is worn over a white chemise with spanish-style blackwork bands. I also beleive (have to check this out at home) that descriptions of clothes worn by Beatrice d'Este and her sister Isabella list some green dresses. I do not know if green was period for early times, certainly I have seen tapestries with green threads (trees, leaves, etc. - see the Unicorn Hunt tapestries, et al) in them. "Prior to the advent of synthetic dyes, the majority of good clear greens, oranges, and purples were produced by overdying one primary color with another. Thus, the very early greens resulted from overdyeing indigo with a clear yellow dye or vice versa. Some of these greens were satisfactory for long exposure to light, and others were not." (Liles, p. 145) The problem is that "most natural yellow dyes are more or less fugitive to light. It is for this reason that many old textiles show only weak yellows, oranges, and greens." (Liles, p. 33) Thus, while green may have been worn, the garments would eventually become more blue than green. Of course, if the substance used to dye something yellow was not grown near where you lived, you couldn't have worn green at all. Common yellows used were Saffron (Crocus sativus), Turmeric (Curcuma longa), and Weld (Reseda luteola). I am not sure exactly how much access groups of people would have had to all these substances. The book I am quoting is Liles, J.N. 1990._The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing_. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press. ISBN: 0-87049-669-7 (cloth) 0-87049-670-0 (paper) A period source for dye recipes is Rosetti, G. ]1548| 1969. _The Plictho of Instructions in the Art of the Dyers._ (Translation of the first edition of 1548 by Edelstein and Borghetty). Cambridge: M.I.T. Press. The Plictho is not in print, but can be obtained by libraries through inter-library loan. Winifred de Schyppewallebotham From: jane at STRATUS.SWDC.STRATUS.COM (Jane Beckman) Date: 1 Nov 91 23:26:51 GMT Sigh, not another pink/purple war. And here I thought this thing was reserved for petty costumer department folks at the Renaissance Faire... It's very easy to prove that pink is period. Take a look at paintings of the period. Lordie, look at all those *vibrant pink* gowns! Who said the Middle Ages were drab? This caused a bit of scandal recently in art circles, too, when they restored some of the lower murals of the Cistine Chapel and found all these people who were wearing vibrantly-colored clothes. The art historians are now claiming that the restoration process must have somehow changed the colors that Michaelangelo used, because the murals were "supposed to" be gloomy... Of course, the term "pink" still referred to a plant, so they couldn't use the word itself. But then, yellow hair wasn't referred to as "blond" yet, either. ROYAL purple is made from murex. There are lots of other ways to get "sad" purples and various lavenders from natural dyes. -Jilara of Carrowlea [jane at swdc.stratus.com] From: 6790753%356_WEST_58TH_5TH_FL%NEW_YORK_NY%WNET_6790753 at mcimail.COM ("KATMAN.WNETS385") Date: 4 Dec 91 15:28:00 GMT A while back someone asked about the results of my dyeing with indigo via a urine bath at Pennsic. It sort of worked. I had only a gallon of urine (I didn't go advertising, and the crew of folks I camped with was not interested in contributing. It was left to me, Ottar and the valiant-and-pregnant Orianna). Because this was in an 8 gallon pot, it evaporated quickly and was too shallow for my purposes. The fabric did get blue, but I could not do the repeated dips needed to get it to be a rich, deep blue (dipping in such a shallow pool of liquid disturbed the sediment at the bottom which then changed the chemical balance in the bath, rendering it useless for dyeing). When I have an outdoor place to do this again, I will attempt it again. Next year I'll save up urine in advance. The fabric smells really bad (I only washed it in Ivory liquid and vinegar). I can't imagine wearing a garment that smelled like that. Maybe I'll try the non-urine alkalai vats they used ("take ashes of lees..." lye anyone?) and see if that smells better. Winifred de Schyppewallebotham (that's Middle English for "From the valley with the stream where the sheep in their pretty blue fleeces were washed")(Nolite Secundo Flumine Natare) Lee Katman == Thirteen/WNET == New York, NY Re: pigments 6 Feb 92 From: amanda at visix.com (Amanda Walker) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Organization: Visix Software, Inc. I second the recommendation of Auldhaefen Associates. They are by far the most economical place I have found to buy period pigments, spices, and all sorts of other Nifty Stuff. They are non-profit, and act as a "materials broker." That is to say, they arrange to buy a bunch of something, repackage it into smaller, more convenient packages (after all, who needs 10 pounds of dragon's blood resin :)?), and resells it at just enough to cover their costs. They're also just real nice folks. Arwen ferch Morgan Ponte Alto, Atlantia Bridge to Academe 2 21 May 92 From: carl at silver.lcs.mit.edu (Carl J.M. Alexander) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Organization: Organization??? northeastern.edu (Barbara Nostrand) writes: > >....[I]t is not necessary to limit the offer to just history >departments. There are also classics departments and medieval >studies departments. In addition there are individual researchers >in art and music departments.... > >[I]t is simply false that academics are uninterested in things >which are of interest to us. For example, musicologists are very >interested in the music that we are interested in. (Some people >get Ph.D. degrees for doing music history research and reconstructions >of music within our period.) Art historians are also intersted in >our period. There is very little that the SCA is interested in which >will not find an academic in some department in some university who >is also interested in it. Just as a for-instance, here's something I -- and I suspect many others in the Society -- would love to have available as a resource, but could never (unless I won the lottery) put together for myself. And it's a project that would be appropriate for PhD level research in any of several fields -- Art History, Textiles, History of Technology, Theater Arts.... A study of period dyes, with information for each dye on its geographic distribution (& how it varied over time), its expense (& how it varied over time), and other availablity-over-time data, along with a listing of the pantone (or whatever standard system) colors each dye could be expected to achieve with various fabrics. The amount of research involved in puting together & documenting such a compendium of information would be formidable. But imagine being able to walk into a fabric store with your pantone chart & buy fabric *knowing* that the material, the weave, and the color are authentic, and that your persona could have afforded it. Alexander of Kiev Carl Alexander carl at silver.lcs.mit.edu Period dyes... 27 May 92 From: ilaine at panix.com (Liz Stokes) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC Beth.Appleton at f4229.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Beth Appleton) writes: > CJA> A study of period dyes, with information for each dye on its > CJA> geographic distribution (& how it varied over time), its expense > CJA> (& how it varied over time), and other availablity-over-time data, > CJA> along with a listing of the pantone (or whatever standard system) > CJA> colors each dye could be expected to achieve with various fabrics. >I realize that this is trivial compared to the project you describe, but >there are a couple of sources. I need to go find my book, but one of my >dye books *has* a color chart. Some of the dyes are post-period, but it >does give you some natural dyes to look at. Also, there is a nice >article on kermes and cochineal in __Cloth_and_Clothing_in_Medieval_ >_Europe,_a_Collection_of_Essays.... (I'll go find the editor on that one >if someone needs it. Please please. grovel even :) I saw a book in the Wellesley library while I was a student there, unfortunately I don't even remember the title, next time I'm up there I'll have to track the durn thing down. It had color plates showing what colors resulted from various ancient and medieval dies such as Murex and kermes. Tyrian purple isn't what we call purple today, its more of a choir-robe-burgundy. Ecclesiastical catalogs are great sources for medieval style stuff like candelabras and silk brocades btw. There is an article in the Fall 1989 issue of Spin-Off about medieval dying by Mary Hill. She was asked by an archaeologist to help work out the dyes and dying methods used in some fabrics which had been recovered from the Mary Rose, one of Henry VIII's battleships sunk in 1547 and recently raised. "He would need a supply of wool, dyed to medieval recipes, which he could use to develop a technique for extracting the dye from the wool. the extract would then be analyzed in a machine which would give a printout of peaks and troughs. The printouts for these known recipes would then be used to decode the printouts for unknown dye extracts. It would seem easier to analyze solutions of dyes to generate the printouts to be used as standards, but Paul felt that the dye is changed during the dying process; the whole operation had to be performed to mimic the condition of the dye on the artifacts." The whole story is fascinating, and at the end of the article she gives directions and recipes wheeeeee! "Three weeks before your dye day, collect urine and put it somewhere in a sealed container where no one will notice the smell." I haven't actually tried this yet :) The issue is still available from Interweave Press, the phone # is (303) 669-7672. The same issue has an article about primitive Norwegian sheep :) I've had a subscripton for about 6 years, mostly it's modern stuff, but every so often there is a great article for SCA types. -Ilaine -- Liz Stokes | Ilaine's EZ-Garb Workshop .... Ilaine de Cameron | "Take your sheep and convince him to take off all his | wool and give it too you. Try challenging him to a game ilaine at panix.com | of strip-nine-man's-morris. Sheep are stupid, you'll win." 17 Jun 92 From: ilaine at panix.com (Liz Stokes) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC Yaakov brought up an excellent point about many period recipies and such calling for things for philosophical rather than empirical reasons. That was pretty much what was on my mind when I expressed skepticism about the importance of urine from different types of people. However, there is and interesting article in the latest issue of Spin-Off (which came yesterday). It seems this spinning guild tried an experiment. Each member took 1 oz of tulip tree leaves, 2 ounces of wool, and a precise list of instructions. incredible range in color variation: dark greenish greys, pinkish beiges, reddish tans, and yellow. The only difference was in the water (members had streams, wells, or spring water). Whew. Brewers use mineral additives to reproduce the flavor or particular beers made from especially hard water, I guess the authenticity-crazed dyer should do the same :) -Ilaine -- Liz Stokes | Ilaine's EZ-Pregnancy Test Ilaine de Cameron | ... "Now take the skein of handspun yarn out of the | dyebath. If it is green, you are with child, if it ilaine at panix.com | is blue, you are not." From: bloodthorn at sloth.equinox.gen.nz (Jennifer Geard) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Cooking fires, woad, and other queries Date: Sat, 20 Mar 93 01:08:33 GMT Unto Stephen Bloch does Pagan le Chaunster send Greetings! > From "The Arcana of Arts and Sciences, or, Farmers' & Mechanics' > Manual: containing a great variety of Valuable Receipts and Useful > Discoveries, some of which were Never Before Published," M. Parker > 1824: > Blue may be dyed with woad alone, which would give a permanent > but not a deep blue; but if indigo be mixed with it, a very > rich colour will be obtained. This sort of comment about the fastness of woad and the brilliance of indigo turns up all over the place. I must admit I'd expected a dark/dull blue from woad, though. (It's coming on: I'm still working on it.) > The author then goes on to describe ten recipes for blue fabric-dyes > of various qualities, using 1824 frontier technology. In addition to > woad, indigo, and bran, some common ingredients are madder, potash, > weld (?), alum, and white tartar. Weld is a plant which gives one of the clearest and most lasting yellow dyes. I'm surprised to see it in a list of blue-making ingredients, but I prefer red-blues to yellow-blues. Madder is the traditional red dye (with madder, weld and woad you can get a long way). British police wear blue uniforms, and it seems that until 1932 they were dyed with a mixure of woad, indigo, madder, bran, and slaked lime. Pagan ________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Geard bloodthorn at sloth.equinox.gen.nz Christchurch, New Zealand From: winifred at trillium.soe.umich.EDU (Lee Katman) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: madder in woad vats Date: 20 Mar 1993 11:10:13 -0500 Hi, Sorry about not quoting the relevant article, I'm not good at using this funky editor... When madder is put into woad vats, as I understand it, it is to act as a nutrient for the fermentation, as is the bran. To get color out of madder, it has to be cooked pretty well, and the fabric has to be mordanted (something that indigo/woad dyeing doesn't require). Apparently lime and microorganism (bran & madder provide food for the micro- organisms) vats were even used up to the early part of this cntury in Africa and the Appalachian sections of the US, and are still used in Japan. The slaked lime mentioned is also called Calcium Oxide. Liles (my favorite source!) says that madder, bran, molasses, dates and raisins were added to fermentation vats as sugar sources for the fermentation. Another hint, you apparently do not want your wool to be in contact with the sediment at the bottom of the vat, so it should be suspended in the liquid. You can apparently leave wool in for a while, the alkalinity in urine vats is of the most gentle sort. Winifred Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: madder in woad vats From: bloodthorn at sloth.equinox.gen.nz (Jennifer Geard) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 93 01:16:37 GMT Hi Winifrid, Er, I though if you boiled madder you released the yellow dye from it, which turned madder reds orange. I know that if you overheat woad it yields pinks (which can be handy as an all-in-one overdying process for lavender shades if you mordant with alum). If the madder is just used for fermentation I guess I can save it for real use in something else -- I've had no trouble getting bran to ferment so far. :-) Thanks for the comments. Pagan ________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Geard bloodthorn at sloth.equinox.gen.nz Christchurch, New Zealand From: haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Saffron Shirts Date: 21 May 1993 20:11:55 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - DECwest Engineering Greetings from Fiacha, Some time ago there was a thread on saffron and the saffron shirts of the Scots and the Irish. A couple of days ago I recived a gift of _Irish Spinning, Dyeing and Weaving_ by Lillias Mitchell which containsd the following:- ...this is bourne out by the only recipe we have, which is given by Good, an Englishman, who was for a time priest and schoolmaster at Limerick, and whose account of Ireland, written in about 1566, is incorporated in Camden's Britannia. He says: "With boughs, bark and leaves of poplar trees beaten together, they dye their loose shirts of a saffron colour (which are now much out of use) mixing the bark of the wild Arbut tree with salt and saffron. In dyeing, their way is not to boil the thing long, but to let it soak for some days together in wine that the colour may be deeper and more durable." Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I might find "Camden's Britannia"? I am assuming that the saffron used is in the process is a token trace to satisfy local 'truth in advertizing' requirements. Fiacha p.s. Thank you, Brid. From: motto at cbnewsf.cb.att.com (mary.rita.otto) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: dyeing in the 9th c Date: 21 Jun 93 21:43:24 GMT Organization: AT&T In article <1993Jun18.190239.11305 at bcars6a8.bnr.ca> Henry.Troup at BNR.CA writes: >In Hrolf Kraki's Saga (as interpreted by Poul Anderson) there's >reference to red from lichen dye. By extrapolation, blue and green from >lichens would also be available. >You can email Dame Enid care of me, BTW. > >Henry Troup - H.Troup at BNR.CA (Canada) When the Roman invaders came to Gaul, they encountered fighters who had dyed themselves blue with woad. Dyes also existed for green and red. Mixing these could produce a wide variety of colors. Purple was difficult to make bright because of chemical reactions between the dyes which caused it to turn brownish, and hence, was expensive and rare. Yellow was also well known and used, as was bleaching, using chemicals and sunlight. I have some documentation for this at home in a book on Medieval Tapestry Designs -- if you'd like the reference, please let me know. So, pretty much all the colors are available in the 9th century. Mary Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: dyeing in the 9th c From: bloodthorn at sloth.equinox.gen.nz (Jennifer Geard) Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 00:18:16 GMT Unto Henry, Mary, and the other goodly Folk of the Rialto does Pagan send Greeting! If you're searching for C9th Scandinavian dyestuffs I'd suggest starting with the Compleat Anachronist #59 _Women's Garb in Northern Europe, 450-100 C.E._ by Christina Krupp and Carolyn A. Priest-Dorman (Mistress Thora Sharptooth, who sometimes appears here). Its discussion of dyeing is brief, but it has a wonderful bibliography with references like: Walton, Penelope, "Dyes of the Viking Age: A Summary of Recent Work," in _Dyes in History and Archaeology_ 7, 1988. > >In Hrolf Kraki's Saga (as interpreted by Poul Anderson) there's > >reference to red from lichen dye. By extrapolation, blue and green from > >lichens would also be available. Lichens produce dye by two methods: fermentation or boiling. Fermentation gives the interesting colours: mostly pinks, purples, reds, and oranges. In my experience boiling tends to produce yellows (at least in New Zealand). Yellow is the easiest and most common colour from natural dyeing. Oh well. The colour you get from fermenting fermentable lichens is not related to the colour of the lichen you started with. If you can produce blue and green from lichen I'd really like to know, since they're two of the most difficult colours... > When the Roman invaders came to Gaul, they encountered fighters > who had dyed themselves blue with woad. I posted on this some months back: there are three Roman sources which mention the bodypainting activities of the Ancient Britons, and they each give a different colour (blue, green, and black). These colours can all be produced from woad, but blue's the most difficult. Who knows? > Dyes also existed for green and red. Red, yes, but green? If you know of a decent single dye for green, please tell -- all the good greens I know of require a two-stage process where you dye them with yellow and then overdye with woad-blue. > Mixing these could produce a wide variety of colors. Yup. Think brick-red (madder: Rubia tinctoria), slightly greenish blue (woad: Isatis tinctoria), and clear yellow (weld: Reseda luteola). The active components of these three dyes were found in textiles from Sutton Hoo. With these primaries you can overdye to make orange, green, and purple. > Purple was difficult to make bright because of chemical > reactions between the dyes which caused it to turn brownish, and > hence, was expensive and rare. Hmmmm... by the ninth century the use of the murex shellfish-based Tyrian purple (the stuff on Roman toga bands, which had these problems) was in decline. On the other hand there's a type of lichen purple which was pretty widespread (and apparently fashionable in Viking Ireland) and you can make purples by overdyeing woad with madder. The language of colour is fascinating and full of traps: we'd probably call Tyrian purple "magenta." > Yellow was also well known and used, Too right. As I type I'm looking at one of the deepest and most aniline- looking yellows I've encountered. It's from onion skins on a mostly-linen underdress, and I don't feel I can any longer repeat the old comments about natural colours being tasteful and muted. The colour of dyed fabrics depends on the fabric, the life-history of the dyestuff, and the dye process. Scandinavian fabrics were predominantly wool and linen, and although well-scoured wool takes dye well, linen resists all but woad and tannin-based dyes (like onion skins and bark). The growing conditions of the dyeplants and cloth-fibres (etc) make a difference to the colour -- I never know whether the colours I get in New Zealand are anything like the shades of Scandinavia, for instance, and linen grown here will never be as white as Irish linen. Most frustrating. The dye-process may involve mordanting (clubmoss is usually replaced with a little alum and less cream of tartar nowadays), fermentation using bran and/or stale urine (just don't ask my housemates about it, okay?), and heating for certain lengths of time at certain temperatures (madder contains a red dye which is released at below simmering temperatures, and a yellow dye which comes out with boiling. If you want red rather than orange, you have to keep the dyebath just below a simmer.). All that sort of thing. Uhmmm... neutrals are easy. The native northern sheep were brown anyway, and there's a range of bark-based dyes which produce pink through tan, brown and black (though getting a good black is quite surprisingly difficult). Another point to remember is that there seems to have been a great trade in both fabrics and dyestuffs at the time you mention. Underdresses from Kiev, fine fabrics from Damascus, walnut shells etc imported for dyeing, are all found at Scandinavian sites. Then there's the Han dynasty silk brocade in a C10th grave at Birka. Makes you think: if A trades with B who trades with C... The moral of the story is that Viking colours are not restricted by the local flora. Iceland didn't have to make do with lichens and dwarf-birch-bark, and there's some seriously strange documentable Viking clothing out there. Pagan (aka Signy Ragnarsdottir) ________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Geard bloodthorn at sloth.equinox.gen.nz Christchurch, New Zealand From: Sheri.Stanley at f326.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Sheri Stanley) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: dyeing in the 9th c Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 08:35:00 PDT Organization: FidoNet node 1:3603/326 - SPPE, St Petersburg FL HT>|> > >In Hrolf Kraki's Saga (as interpreted by Poul Anderson) there's HT>|> > >reference to red from lichen dye. By extrapolation, blue and green fr HT>|> > >lichens would also be available. HT>... HT>|>The colour you get from fermenting fermentable lichens is not related to t HT>|>colour of the lichen you started with. If you can produce blue and green HT>|>from lichen I'd really like to know, since they're two of the most difficu HT>|>colours... HT>I was extrapolating from the Harris tweed greens and blues. The real HT>stuff is said to be dyed with "crottle", a lichen. As far as I've been able to ascertain, the colors to be gotten from fermenting lichens are all in the red/purple color range. Yellow and brown are fairly common from using lichens simply boiled, and you can sometimes get a greenish yellow (pretty gross color, actually). However, my experiments & reading have never once turned up the possibility of blue or green from lichens (and probably a good thing!). Harris Tweed greens & blues are dyed w/indigo or woad (w/a yellow overdye for the green). The crottle is used in other colors, brown or yellow. It accounts for the distinctive smell of Harris Tweeds. Blues can be gotten from indigo, woad, dyer's knotweed. Greens are usually gotten by overdyeing, but some plants will produce a greeny color which can be strengthened by using copper as a mordant. Grania -- Internet: Sheri.Stanley at f326.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG UUCP: ...!myrddin!mechanic!326!Sheri.Stanley Note: Mechanic is a free gateway between FIdonet<>USENET for the TAMPA BAY,FL. metropolitan area. From: palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu (sharon ann palmer) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: DYESTUFFS Date: 12 Aug 1993 11:36:15 -0400 Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray) writes: >There's a periodical called something like "dyes in Archaeology". An Please post this reference. >I haven't come across St. John's Blood, is that another name for >kermes? Its another insect in the same family. _Prehistoric Textiles_ by E.J.W. Barber has a nice section on the various red insect dyes. Some have carminic acid, some kermesic acid as the coloring agent. On pg. 224, "Late Neolithic textile fibers dyed red with kermes,... as well as kermes itself, were discovered in cave at Adaouste in southern France (Cotte and Cotte 1916, 764)" from the bib: Cotte, J and C. Cotte. 1916 "examen d'un pa^te pre'historique" _Comptes Rendus se l'Acade'mie des Sciences 162: 762-64. Barber is worth reading for anyone interested in early spinning, weaving, or dying. Ranvaig palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu From: longo at eggo.usf.edu (Andrea Longo) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: DYESTUFFS Date: 13 Aug 1993 06:30:04 GMT Organization: University of South Florida, Department of Computer Science and Engineering In article <24do1fINNel9 at iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu> palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu (sharon ann palmer) writes: > >_Prehistoric Textiles_ by E.J.W. Barber has a nice section on the >various red insect dyes. Some have carminic acid, some kermesic >acid as the coloring agent. > > >Barber is worth reading for anyone interested in early spinning, >weaving, or dying. > I think I saw a paperback version for a somewhat less obscene amount of money. Anyone looking to acquire should check this out. I agree that it is a wonderful source for textile people. Asleif From: jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Dyestuffs Date: 17 Aug 93 09:46:52 Organization: STC Technology Ltd., London Road, Harlow, UK. Dyes in History and Archaeology 7 (Papers presented at the 7th annual meeting, York 1988) Published by Textile Research on behalf of the Association of Researchers into Dyes in History and Archaeology, York 1989 ISSN 0952-2476 I bought my copy at the Jorvik Viking centre York U.K. for two pounds ninety five pence. It saya further copies of this volume can be obtained from: P. Walton Textile Research 12 Bootham Terrace York Y03 7DH England Cheques, money orders or transfers should be made payable to 'Dyes in History and Archaeology' Giro account no: 63-935-5906 possibly relevant papers included are: D. Cardon: Mediterranean kermes and kermes dying M.C. Whiting: The analysis of madder and related Dyes H. Schweppe: Identification of red madder and insect dyes by thin layer chromatography [abstract only] P. Walton Dyes of the Viking Age: a summary of recent Work Penelope Walton's paper says kermes was found on imported silks in Viking Age England Another paper mentioning kermes is 'Dyes and Wools in Iron Age Textiles from Norway and Denmark' Penelope Walton, Journal of Danish Archaeology, vol 7, 1988, pp144-158 textile number c348 from Veien is listed as dyed with 'Polosh Cochineal' textile number B4590 type 4 is listed as dyed with 'kermes or Polish coch.' Both Veim and Evebo Eide are listed as "Scandinavian or north European in origin from late Roman/Migration Period" JSDC Volume 105 November 1989 has an article by A Verhecken entitled "dyeing with kermes is still alive!" and giving details on commercial Kermes dyeing in Tunis, this is only done 3 or 4 times a year. The author of the paper beleives he has found the only remaining commercial kermes dyers. JSDC Volume 106 May/June 1990 has an article entitled "Kermes, a Dying dye" by Dominique Cardon, which begins: "Kermes, the pea-sized parasite of a prickly evergreen Mediterranean oak, is the source of one of the most exclusive dyes of all times: scarlet. In ancient and medieval times it was second only to the imperial purple..." the article goes on to say the name kermes is from the Persian kirmis from the indo-european root kwrmi (worm). The name originally described the Armenian or Arrarat cochineal (Porphyrophora hameli) but came to be applied to other red dye yielding insects. Dominique Cardon the describes dyes obtained from 5 different insects in the kermes family and identifies Kermes vermilio the species yielding the red dye. Pretty similar stuff to the paper in 'Dyes in History and Archaeology', Hope thats of some use. If you want more specific information let me know & I'll see what I can find. Sadly since I stopped being a student I don't have easy access to a good library, but I still have a huge pile of papers at home I can look through. It's not the same though, I thimk I'm addicted to libraries and suffering withdrawl symptoms! If anyone wants a copy of the Dyes in History and Archaeology and has trouble sorting out some U.K. currency I would be happy to do swaps for some SCA literature (I have a very old copy of the known world handbook, presumably it has changed since, & it sounds like a lot more stuff has been produced aswell) Jennifer Vanaheim Vikings (not SCA, just passing through the Rialto) From: bloodthorn at sloth.equinox.gen.nz (Jennifer Geard) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: dyestuffs, kermes Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 06:20:44 GMT Organization: Lethargy Inc. Greetings from Pagan, in a flying visit... Grania asked whether there was evidence that kermes was used in pre-1000 Scandinavia and/or the British Isles. When I asked Mistress Thora Sharptooth a similar question some months back (I was solely interested in Vikings), she replied that--as far as she'd been able to determine--they did not themselves use the stuff. Apparently kermes turns up on imported silks, but not on wools or linens. Yes, it is a pity. All I've got from madder so far is a deep salmon -- any suggestions? Pagan le Chaunster ________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Geard bloodthorn at sloth.equinox.gen.nz Christchurch, New Zealand From: jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: dyestuffs, kermes Date: 19 Aug 93 09:21:00 Organization: STC Technology Ltd., London Road, Harlow, UK. I posted something earlier about analyses of Dyes on Viking Age textiles in England. Your Mistress Thora Sharptooth may be correct. In "Textiles Cordage and Raw Fibres from 16-22 Coppergate" are results of tests undertaken by Dr G.W. Taylor. Textiles analyed are 9th Century CE to medieval from 3 sites in York. Over 34 samples were dyed with madder (5 were silk the rest wool), but only 3 pieces of silk were dyed with kermes (a silk tabby weave textile, a silk ribbon, and a silk reliquary pouch.) The accompanying text comments: "Kermes was imported into England in the Medieval Period, and is to be found in the better-quality testiles of that period. It was always an expensive dye, however, and it is not surprising that the cheaper madder was the more common red to be used in the wool textiles" However bear in mind that dye testing is a fairly recent innovation in the archaeology of textiles, so some kermes red may yet appear on English wool. But it would probably have belonged to the period equivalent of a millionare! Dyes on linens are a bit more problematical, as most surviving samples are too carbonised to analyse successfully for dye content. You can get brighter colours from madder by adding chalk to the dyebath, a friend of mine had good results using alum mordant then adding ammonia to the dyebath. Be sure not to overheat or the dye goes a bronze colour instead of red. Use the freshest root you can get, chopped fine with a food processor, or grated. I have only dyed with madder powder so far which gives a brownish brick red, no matter how cool you keep the dyebath. I've just got hold of some root & am hoping it will come out brighter. If your colour is salmon maybe you just don't have enough madder in the dyebath? Jennifer (Not SCA just passing the Rialto & stopped for a gossip) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: hwt at bcarh11a.bnr.ca (Henry Troup) Subject: Re: dyestuffs, kermes Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa, Canada Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 17:15:27 GMT In article , jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray) writes: |> a bronze colour instead of red. Use the freshest root you can get, |> chopped fine with a food processor, or grated. I have only dyed with |> madder powder so far which gives a brownish brick red, no matter how |> cool you keep the dyebath. I've just got hold of some root & am hoping |> it will come out brighter. If your colour is salmon maybe you just |> don't have enough madder in the dyebath? My wife, Dame Enid, has done a lot of madder dyeing. We (which often means me) pound the dried root in a big mortar and pestle. The first bit off the root gives the brown - we separate it. The next third of the the pounding gives the best reds. The last thirdis discarded. It's plant cores and is muddy again. She made a lovely pink baby blanket by letting the madder bath ferment (no additions needed, it ferments by itself). That was over two pounds of wool in six or so dyebaths. Consistent madder dyeing is possible, but takes a lot of care. Jennifer, we have madder growing in the garden. We've never used fresh root - I presume it needs to be dried before use? Do you know? Before that, we got our best madder from a supplier in Godalming, England, whose name escapes me at present. I know that she grew her own root. -- Henry Troup - H.Troup at BNR.CA (Canada) - BNR owns but does not share my opinions "The minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect" - TJ Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: gwennis at jcnpc.cmhnet.org (Gwennis Mooncat) Subject: Re: dyestuffs, kermes Organization: Homebrew Virtual Reality Labs Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 00:52:24 GMT greetings! glad some of us are still on line this week...8-) i, too, have not managed to get real red from madder. i have tried whole rooots and powdered, keeping the temp low, pH shifts, mordanting first and in the same bath (doesn't work too well together). the best i can do is dark orangey-red, or screaming neon orange (with tin). i also found that using , by weight, 2 X fiber weight gives the most color, then doing exhaust baths. yes, i know, that is an excessive amount, but it gave great color. glad so many are interested in real dyes...8-) gwennis mistress gwynydd ni gelligaer, ol march of tirnewydd, barony middle marches, mk columbus, oh From: KEITHS at KSUVM.BITNET (Lisbet) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: dyestuffs Date: 22 Aug 1993 13:37:17 -0400 Organization: The Internet I think that in his class at Vertigo II Richard Barbarossa said something about the British Redcoat Red being from madder. If I remember rightly, he said there's a brighter vein in the root and that small children with sharp knives peeled off the less bright stuff and that it took a very large number of roots to get enough bright veins to do any worthwhile amount of cloth. Of course, being a terminally worried parent I keyed in on the *small children* with *sharp knives* part and I could be misremembering which plant the dyestuff was from. Replies to BETHS at KSUVM.KSU.EDU (Reply will send it to my husband.) From: PRIEST at vaxsar.vassar.EDU (CAROLYN PRIEST-DORMAN) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Dyestuffs (kermes) Date: 27 Aug 1993 09:02:04 -0400 Organization: The Internet Subject: Dyestuffs Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, greeting from Thora Sharptooth! I missed seeing most of you at Pennsic, although I had the pleasure of meeting a few of you briefly. Next year we won't be camped with royalty, we promise! Catching up on my digests, I find that while I was at Pennsic, Grania From Trimaris wrote: >Perhaps someone can help w/a personal quest of mine. I am searching for >primary evidence of the existence and/or use of Kermes or St. John's >Blood prior to 1000 C.E. I have searched in vain so far (though I'm >pretty certain its use didn't just spring up overnight), and I'd love to >hear if anyone has any pertinent info. FIBER FREAKERY ALERT; IF YOU DON'T APPRECIATE DYEING OR EARLY PERIOD TEXTILES, QUIT NOW! From what I have been able to determine, kermes (Kermes vermilio) was used in eastern Mediterranean silk dyeing well before its eventual importation into western and northern Europe. Here are some sample references for pre-1000 examples of its use. (The confusion over bug nomenclature has been taken into account, and only references to the "true" kermes, backed up by chemical evidence of the dyeing agent kermesitic acid, have been listed here below.) Two silk textiles from Period 4B of Viking Age Jorvik, circa 930-975 CE, catalogued in Penelope Walton, TEXTILES, CORDAGE AND RAW FIBRE FROM 16-22 COPPERGATE, Vol. 17:5 of THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF Y0RK (1989): 1342, "Fragments, largest 145x30mm, of dark brown loose tabby, 18/Z/0.1 x 23/I/0.4. Dyed with ?kermes." 1355, "Mid brown ribbon, 135x19mm, made up of two similar pieces, 100 and 40mm long, stitched together, tabby, with simple selvedges, Wa/48-52/S x We/30- 36/S, c. 90 warps wide. Dyed with kermes." (p. 437) Also, 1408, the Jorvik reliquary pouch (although not necessary pre- 1000), included a kermes-dyed samite outer pouch. (p. 438) Three textiles listed in Dominique Cardon, Alain Colombini, and Brigitte Oger, "Analysis of Medieval Red Dyes by HPLC, with Special Emphasis on the Insect Dyes," DYES IN HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY 8 (1989), Table 8, p. 30: MHT Lyon #34-872, 6th- 7th century "Persian rider's coat," lined with a kermes-dyed textile mordanted with iron; MHT Lyon #12-574, another 6th- 7th century Persian coat, with mohair "ornaments" dyed with kermes; Reims Cathedral, St. Remi's Shroud, before 892 CE, kermes-dyed silk weft. "While exotic dyes such as kermes and (perhaps) Armenian cochineal appear on Middle Eastern textiles from classical times, nevertheless madder seems to have been very generally used, and most likely to give red shades. On British textiles (or rather, those found in British archaeological investigations), the only other red dye found is kermes and, as expected, this appears only on textiles that were probably imported." (George W. Taylor, "Reds and purples: from the classical world to pre-conquest Britain," TEXTILES IN NORTHERN ARCHAEOLOGY, ed. Penelope Walton and John-Peter Wild [London: Archetype Publications, 1990], p. 43) I suggest that investigating the Byzantine (or perhaps the Spanish) silk industry might be the best way to go about documenting the use of kermes before 1000. *********************************************************************** Carolyn Priest-Dorman Thora Sharptooth Poughkeepsie, NY Frosted Hills ("where's that?") priest at vassar.edu East Kingdom Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or *********************************************************************** Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: gwennis at jcnpc.cmhnet.org (Gwennis Mooncat) Subject: Re: dyestuffs, kermes Organization: Homebrew Virtual Reality Labs Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 02:29:58 GMT greetings! (my editor seems to have stopped quoting for some reason..?) about madder....i think we don't get real red for all of the reasons you mentioned, plus unknown ones? 8-) maybe someone growing it will run a series of experiments for us. trying it over several years of growth, different soil pH, fresh roots, roots dried for different lengths of time, etc. any takers? about sandlewood...i've only tried samples, using 1 oz of wood chips. i used an alcohol extraction, and got an amazing, vibrant deep red-orange, completely different from madder-color. i haven't tried just soaking and cooking, and i haven't run washfast or lightfast tests on it..yet.. but it really does give a beautiful color. i cold water soaked it, btw. indigo in urine...my apprentice is fermenting a batch for me right now. (she has outdoor space behind an auto salvage shop, smell no problem...8-) ) we're intending on trying it out this week, depending on its status. she's supposed to check it today for me, so we can try it monday evening, i hope. we're usuing the egyptian indigo a friend sent me last year. i'll post about it if we get anything worth posting about.! that's it for now. anyone else doing anything? gwennis mistress gwynydd ni gelligaer, ol march of tirnewydd, barony middle marches, mk tarkhan, khanate basking lizard columbus, oh Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: jael at sage.cc.purdue.edu (Jael) Subject: Re: dyestuffs, kermes Organization: Purdue University Computing Center Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 23:04:14 GMT In article <1993Aug30.022958.2255 at jcnpc.cmhnet.org> gwennis at jcnpc.cmhnet.org (Gwennis Mooncat) writes: >greetings! (my editor seems to have stopped quoting for some reason..?) >about madder....i think we don't get real red for all of the reasons you >an alcohol extraction, and got an amazing, vibrant deep red-orange, completely >different from madder-color. i haven't tried just soaking and cooking, and i >haven't run washfast or lightfast tests on it..yet.. but it really does give a >beautiful color. i cold water soaked it, btw. >gwennis > I think I've just had experience with this...I had a bag of saunders (which I think is ground sandlewood bark, or something else having to do with sandlewood) break in one of the boxes I was bringing home from pennsic. Every damp cloth I used to clean up the mess (fortunately the box was camping gear, not garb) is now a lovely pale maroon shade that doensn't want to wash out. So I can testify that saunders produces a lovely reddish color - assuming it usually colors the things you WANT to be red! :-) :-) :-) From: Sheri.Stanley at f326.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Sheri Stanley) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: dyestuffs, kermes Date: Fri, 03 Sep 93 09:12:00 PDT Organization: FidoNet node 1:3603/326 - SPPE, St Petersburg FL GM>mentioned, plus unknown ones? 8-) maybe someone growing it will run a serie GM>of experiments for us. trying it over several years of growth, different so GM>pH, fresh roots, roots dried for different lengths of time, etc. Sigh. We can only hope..... (I *wish* I had a big yard!) GM>about sandlewood...i've on;y tried samples, using 1 oz of wood chips. i use GM>an alcohol extraction, and got an amazing, vibrant deep red-orange, complete GM>different from madder-color. i haven't tried just soaking and cooking, and GM>haven't run washfast or lightfast tests on it..yet.. but it really does give GM>beautiful color. i cold water soaked it, btw. I've been using it powdered...just soaking doesn't seem to give a particularly good color. Alcohol extraction's about the best bet. It's not overly fast (well, faster than alkanet, but not as fast as, say, cochineal). GM>indigo in urine...my apprentice is fermenting a batch for me right now. (sh GM>has outdoor space behind an auto salvage shop, smell no problem...8-) ) we GM>intending on trying it out this week, depending on its status. she's suppos GM>to check it today for me, so we can try it monday evening, i hope. we're GM>usuing the egyptian indigo a friend sent me last year. i'll post about it i GM>we get anything worth posting about.! Have you tried doing the "no work" method? Apparently (I haven't tested it yet) you take a greasy fleece and put it in a sealed container w/the indigo and leave it in the sun for several weeks. The suint is supposed to cause the reduction. Of course, I imagine you'd get a slightly variegated look, but if you're dyeing in the wool, you'd get that anyway, really. I'm hoping to try it the next time I get a fleece. It would sure cut down on the work! I finished the piece I was weaving (which will be turned into seat cushions for events and kid's garb), and I'm still spinning to be able to weave off the homespun on my table loom (I counted the skeins twice - how embarrassing). Hey, got any hat patterns from early Scandinavia? I'm trying to design my next project for the Gulf Wars laurel's "cultural exchange" (everyone brings an entry and goes home w/someone else's entry), and the last two years I've entered hats, so I thought I'd stay with the hat motif here.... Ta, Grania -- Internet: mechanic.fidonet.org From: palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu (sharon ann palmer) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: dyestuffs Date: 2 Sep 93 23:21:31 GMT Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science In article jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray) writes: >I thought the british redcoat red was an insect dye. Certainly at one ... >The point of all this rambling is that at one point the british >redcoats were dyed with an insect dye. That doesn't mean that they >didn't use madder at some other point though. Millia Davenport _The Book of Costume_ pg 414 "European Dystuffs" "The madder of the Low Countries is the fast red of military and hunting coats until XIXc. The kermes of the cardinal's red gowns..." I dont know her sources for this though. A point is that while madder and kermes would both be called red, they are very different colors. Madder tends towards orange while cochineal, and I assume kermes, tend towards purple. Ibid. About natural dyes "their colors have a subtle varied richness of which we have been deprived by standardization and fast colors." Ranvaig (Sharon Palmer) reply to sapalmer at magnusug.acs.ohio-state.edu From: gwennis at infinet.com (Gwennis Mooncat) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Period Black Ink/Dye Date: 17 Mar 1994 23:29:04 GMT Organization: InfiNet - Internet Access (614/268-3639) greetings from mistress gwennis: on making black ink or dye: you might try boiling the galls in an iron kettle. this is how i prefer to prepare various dyes requiring iron. be sure to strain it well. if you do choose to use iron filings, know that they are difficult to strain out completely. i remember a dyed, knitted hat that was entered in an a&s faire many years ago. when i was finished judging it (a very well made hat) my lap was full of iron filings. i was glad that i had not tried on the hat; however, the maker ran it through many more washes and finally removed all the excess iron. i saw it recently, and it was still a nice brown. Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: leeu at celsiustech.se (Leif Euren) Subject: Re: Period Black Ink/Dye Organization: CelsiusTech AB Date: Sun, 20 Mar 1994 10:58:11 GMT Mistress Gwennis wrote: > you might try boiling the galls in an iron kettle. I've made ink from a period recipy for some 5 years know, at it prescribes gall nuts (correct word?) and green vitrol (iron sulphate). I've never tried to make it in a iron kettle, but I believe the result is better (i.e. blacker) with the vitriol. Also, an iron kettle will be used up in the end. It is true that this ink is corrosive to the base. I've seen medieval manuscripts made on paper, where all the text, and the underlying paper, was "gone". The easiest way to read it was to hold it up to the light, and let the it shine through the letters. Vellum and parchment take this better, and the acidity helps the ink to stick. your humble servant Peder Klingrode | Leif Euren Stockholm, Sweden Holmrike, Nordmark, Drachenwald | leeu at celsiustech.se From: gwennis at infinet.com (Gwennis Mooncat) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: dyeing with onions (was Re: HELLO..) Date: 6 May 1994 04:26:32 GMT Organization: InfiNet - Internet Access (614/224-3410) Kathleen Costello (costellk at scooby.beloit.edu) wrote: : BTW How do you use onion skins to dye fabric? Any tips or sources : on procedure would be gratefully accepted. I would like to start spinning : and dyeing my own wool using period techniques this summer. greetings! start collecting the skins.....the more you use per weight of fiber, the richer/darker the color. be aware that onion skin dye is not light fast and will fade quite a bit over a year or two, depending on how much sun it gets. my 5 year old samples are very pale and peaked looking now. which dye you use depends on what's available and what use you are intending for the fiber. many mundane dye books are on the market with the basic info, but look for Liles, (jim, i think) 'the art and craft of natural dyeing' (my apprentice has my copy right now, so i can't check the name). he has lots of historical info in it and pretty pictures. of course, i could mention the complete anachronist #41, dyestuffs, but folks might think i'm bragging....8-) gwennis whose new .sig file is confusing the heck out of other newsgroups.... ************************************************************************ mistress gwynydd ni gelligaer, ol, called gwennis tarkhanum, basking lizard, great darke horde current residence: shire of tirnewydd, barony middle marches, midrealm aka columbus, ohio From: gwennis at infinet.com (Gwennis Mooncat) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Blue (was: Maternity Garb) Date: 27 Jul 1994 22:32:53 GMT Organization: smelly indigo vats are us... AuntieS at aol.COM wrote: : Mistress Gwennis or another natural dye expert can advise you on how : various blues can be obtained. (Gwennis, where are you?) buried in an indigo vat...! my apprentice maeve and i are dyeing the weft for the sheep to shawl demo at pennsic. it's running rather slowly this week because the temperature is fairly cool for the end of july. slows down the fermentation process. dern it.... as for different blues... well, you can start with different color fibers. i can't -prove- they did it, but starting with grey wool gives a different blue than white wool or brown. i've found that using a light yellow then indigo gives a turquoisey-blue with one or two lights dips. different yellows give different blues to greens. haven't tried diff. mordants yet. number of dips really makes the main changes in color. so there is a really wide variety available. and how you reduce the indigo in the first place also makes a difference. [stale urine is gentler on protein fibers, btw. don't forget the vinegar rinse.] i have not tried the -saxon blue- vat, with sulfuric acid. oop, and i'd rather not risk ruining my fine wools. also it's not as permanent as a fermentation vat. thiourea dioxide is also obviously oop, but is easier for city dwellers....just be careful how long you dip. and remember the final vinegar rinse. ack.....got carried away! see what happens when you spend too long bent over the stale p*ss vat....8-) gwennis, who does remember to wear gloves when playing in the tank....usually... "what? why are my hand blue? aren't yours?" ************************************************************************ mistress gwynydd ni gelligaer, ol, called gwennis tarkhanum, khanate basking lizard, great darke horde shire of tirnewydd, barony middle marches, midrealm, aka columbus, oh member #34497, society for creative anachronism .sigfile v. 1.03 email: gwennis at infinet.com since the info was requested...8-) From: corliss at hal.PHysics.wayne.EDU (David J. Corliss) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Ammonia and dyes Date: 1 Sep 1994 12:40:15 -0400 Greetings to all, and especially Mistress Gwennis, from Beorthwine- Well do I know that a number of dyes, especially the orchil of which I am so fond, were made by fermentation in urine. I have seen gentles travel great distances with purple dye soaking in well-sealed containers, and Heaven help them if this should ever come open in transit. All this is done for the sake of the ammonia that the urine provides, without which the color can not be produced. I also understand that ammonia was long known as essence of Hartshorn, for it was prepared from this material. Has anyone tried preparing Hartshorn and using it in orchil or indigo? I have made Hartshorn, but not for this purpose. Is there evidence that hartshorn might be substituted for urine for turning _cloth_ blue (as opposed to the alchemist's job of preparing a litmus solution for orchil-bearing lichen and hartshorn)? This might make the job less troublesome than using urine. Beorthwine of Grafham Wood From: jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Period Black Ink/Dye Date: 8 Mar 94 15:43:41 Organization: STC Technology Ltd., London Road, Harlow, UK. Mistress Gwennis passed me a recipe for black ink which I tried out last weekend at a craft session. It worked so well I thought someone else out there might like to try it. She got the recipe from a Dover translation of a medieval text by Cenini (sp?) We took a cup of oak galls and a cup of water, then added a teaspoon of iron salts (ferrous sulphate). To make writing ink add a few spoonfulls of gum arabic (I'm told that arrowroot would work aswell, but we didn't try that). The ink looks light grey when it goes on, but as it oxidises it slowly turns to black. It's quite fun watching the ink develop before your eyes, it's quite different from modern inks which just sit there staying the same colour. If you leave out the gum arabic/arrowroot you have a dye. Heat silk in it and you get a dense bluish black. On wool it gives a very very dark brown colour, it looks black beside a black T shirt, but had a definite brownish tinge when held next to ythe dyed silk. The oak galls are a concentrated source of tannin. If you can't get oak galls we produced a similar effect by boiling three teabags in a cup of water for about quarter of an hour. It wasn't quite as good an ink as the stuff from the oak galls, but it improved overnight and gave a reasonable black. The oak gall ink also improved overnight even though we had strained out the oak galls by passing it through a coarse cloth. I suppose there was still fine sediment in the pot that was causing the tannin concentration to go up? After leaving overnight the ink went onto paper as a dark grey colour, and turned as black as india ink within minutes. I would like to try the same again with a different source of Iron since a bottle of Iron sulphate crytals doesn't look very period. Iron filings or rust might work as a source of Iron to blacken the ink, as vegetable tanned leather turns black when exposed to iron rivets and fittings. I suspect the iron is reacting with the tannin in the leather to produce the same black compound. The oak gall ink dyes wood black, so I'm planning on using it to paint in the details on my Viking tent, as the original from the Gokstad ship had painted details on it. We used quill pens to write with the ink, and sometimes found the ink went on a little grey as it ran out. This meant that we had to dip slightly more often than when using india ink, but it was worth it for the fun of watching the letters change colour as we wrote. Jennifer/Rannveik Vanaheim Vikings From: mchance at crl.com (Michael A. Chance) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Oh woad is me.... Date: 6 Nov 1994 21:08:49 -0800 Mistress Gwennis Mooncat writes: >Peter Rose (WISH at uriacc.uri.EDU) wrote: >: Since you've brought it up, what *IS* the process necesary to >: get dye from woad? >to begin with, only first year plants produce indigotin. the second year, it >all goes into producing flowers/seeds. [process deleted] >this is a complex process, and i would heartliy suggest to anyone >considering it to read up. there are several books on the market that have >the info. i would start with rita buchanan, "a weaver's garden". there is >also a booklet put out byt the brooklyn botanical gardens that has an >article by rita with useful info in it. only a few years old, but i don't >have it handy right nonw [i loaned it out]. also, look for j.n. liles, "the >art and craft of natural dyeing". Something that I've yet to see anyone mention here: Before planting any woad seeds/plants, check with your local agricultural authorities. In many areas of the U.S., at least, woad is illegal to grow intentionally, having been declared a "pernicious weed". Mikjal Annarbjorn -- Michael A. Chance St. Louis, Missouri, USA "At play in the fields Work: mc307a at sw1stc.sbc.com of St. Vidicon" Play: mchance at crl.com Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: v081lu33 at ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (TRISTAN CLAIR DE LUNE/KEN MONDSCHEIN) Subject: Re: natural dyes are muted...NOT! [was something about kilts] Organization: University at Buffalo Date: Sat, 5 Nov 1994 19:27:27 GMT In article <39eslm$432 at rigel.infinet.com>, gwennis at infinet.com (Gwennis Mooncat) writes: >greetings to all: > >in a previous article about kilts, it was mentioned that natural dye colors >were all muted! and not bright like modern materials. this is erroneous! >natural colors can be quite bright! in fact, fermented lichen can be >screaming fushia. and lichen dyes were used in the highlands until early >this century. > >now, many natural dyes do fade over time, but not all. many stay extremely >bright. a plaid woven of yarns dyed with onion skins, madder/lady's >bedstraw, lichen, and woad would shine like a beacon. > >i think the so-called muted tartans sold to "look like natural dyes" are >hype! don't be fooled! check with your local fiber enthusiasts, some of them >surely will have samples to show you. > >gwennis, natural dye maven > >************************************************************************ >mistress gwynydd ni gelligaer, ol, called gwennis >tarkhanum, khanate basking lizard, great darke horde >shire of tirnewydd, barony middle marches, midrealm, aka columbus, oh >member #34497, society for creative anachronism .sigfile v. 1.03 >email: gwennis at infinet.com since the info was requested...8-) The Unicorn tapestries at the Cloisters collection in Fort Tyron park (in the north end of Manhattan) have beautiful, vivid colors. They were done, BTW, half a milennia ago in 1500. Besides being a beautiful medieval/renaissance allegory, they're also excellent sources for a variety of information on Renaissance life. Ironically enough, the artifical dyes that the 19th century restoration used have since faded and look quite ugly. The Cloisters is itself wonderful. It's a bunch of Medieval buildings patisched together. They even have a medieval herb garden. It's a division of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the guys with the great armor collection, where I hope to work this summer...). --Tristan From: Phyllis_Gilmore at rand.org (Phyllis Gilmore) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: natural dyes are muted...NOT! [was something about kilts] Date: Mon, 7 Nov 94 12:38:28 GMT Organization: RAND In Article , v081lu33 at ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (TRISTAN CLAIR DE LUNE/KEN MONDSCHEIN) wrote: > The Unicorn tapestries at the Cloisters collection in Fort Tyron park >(in the north end of Manhattan) have beautiful, vivid colors. They were done, >BTW, half a milennia ago in 1500. Besides being a beautiful >medieval/renaissance allegory, they're also excellent sources for a variety of >information on Renaissance life. > Ironically enough, the artifical dyes that the 19th century restoration >used have since faded and look quite ugly. > The Cloisters is itself wonderful. It's a bunch of Medieval buildings >patisched together. They even have a medieval herb garden. It's a division >of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the guys with the great armor collection, >where I hope to work this summer...). > I'd like to add to Tristan's comments by adding both the tapestries in Paris' Cluny Museum and those at Hearst's (infamously overdecorated) Castle here in California. The colors are indeed rich, even with the passage of several centuries and, in the case of Cluny's unicorn series, serious damage that's been repaired about the bottom edges. I found the tour guide's talk in the billiards room at Hearst Castle particularly enlightening. The tapestries hung in that room are colorful and have not faded (at least not in the time they've been in place). The felt covers of the pool tables, which had been replaced within the five years previous to my visit (in the '70s) and dyed with the best modern stuff, had faded appreciably--which the guide demonstrated simply by moving the racked pool balls over. The tapestries and the pool tables were subject to essentially the same lighting. It's apparent to me that the tapestries are a better guide to the possible colors, tones, etc. of *fabric* than the behavior of modern dyed fabrics with time. By the by, I read in a book on kilts that the "ancient" colors had been "extrapolated" from some very old plaid fabric that had been dug up out of a bog and was supposed to be quite old. Apparently the sett matched that of some modern tartan or another and it was therefore assumed that it *was* the same tartan, etc., etc. etc. ****************************************** SCA: Philippa de Ecosse, Lyondemere, Caid mka: Phyllis Gilmore, Santa Monica and Torrance, CA From: cav at bnr.ca (Rick Cavasin) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Dying Linen Date: 22 Jun 1995 14:25:50 GMT Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd. In article <3saskf$rjf at agate.berkeley.edu>, hrjones at uclink.berkeley.edu (Heather Rose Jones) writes: |> Michael Stasica (michael.stasica at canrem.com) wrote: |> : Good Day to all assembled: |> |> : I've access to a large quantity of 100% linen, all white. How difficult is |> : it to dye this material using onion skins for the dye? Should I use a |> : mordant to fix the dye, or simply re-dye as the colour fades? |> The function of the mordant is to help the dye bind to the fiber. Also, it will modify the colour you obtain. I'm not sure how the mordant affects the light fastness of the various dyes, but since it involves binding the dye, it will affect the wash-fastness. Some natural dyes do not require a mordant. These are called 'substantive' dyes. Among them are the red lichen dyes (orchil, etc.), indigo/woad, and walnut hulls (on wool anyway). Onion skins would be a mordant dye. Unfortunately, most of my research has been on dyeing skins, so I've paid attention to the wool recipes (ie. protein fibers) rather than the plant fiber recipes. The impression I get is that mordanting linen is not as simple as mordanting wool, and that linen is difficult to dye. It certainly CAN be done however. Whether or not you think it's worth the trouble to learn to dye linen for this one project is another question. Using it white as Tangwystyl suggests is probably your best bet. I think linen looks pretty spiffy just the way it is. Cheers, Balderik/Rick From: li899gej at kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jennifer Geard) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Dying Linen Date: 25 Jun 1995 03:41:25 GMT Organization: Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Michael of Rye wrote: : I've access to a large quantity of 100% linen, all white. How difficult is : it to dye this material using onion skins for the dye? Should I use a : mordant to fix the dye, or simply re-dye as the colour fades? Do test samples: one pre-mordanted with alum and another not. Linen doesn't take most natural dyestuffs well, but onion skins are one of the exceptions. I've had intense almost orangey gold from onion skins on linen with an alum mordant (standing in for clubmoss). Note that even with the mordant the colour fades over time. The two things which seem to affect the colour most are light and washing. Wash rarely, by hand, and without modern washing agents. You'll probably find yourself re-dying the garment whenever you want to freshen up the colour (for a while I redyed that underdress for any big event). I've found it possible to redye linen dresses in my large dyepot because they tend to pack down small when they're wet and I can get an even colour -- woollen clothing is a differen story and I wouldn't recemmend re-dyeing it. All the usual cautions about matching threads to fabrics apply particularly if you intend to be able to re-dye the garment, BTW. Payne/Signy From: wildgoose at gateway.ecn.com (Keith Cunningham) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Dying linen Date: 25 Jun 1995 11:49:47 -0700 Organization: West Coast Computer Products This is being posted by my friend Keith Cunningham for me. I have no e-mail adress. Morie Johns In my experience 100% dyes very well. Onion skins and a good long long soak will work. Mordent with coachenil {Sorry I can't spell that :{) KEC} Irish peoples dyed their linen a Saffron color as a way of showing wealth. It will fade over time. For more details check out the net area on fibers. Sorry I don't have the name. From: UDSD007 at DSIBM.OKLADOT.STATE.OK.US (Mike.Andrews) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Oak Gall Ink Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 16:38 Organization: The University of Oklahoma (USA) IVANOR at delphi.com writes: >Quoting WISH from a message in rec.org.sca > >for it. The only part I now don't have right is: What's green > >vitriol? > >Sulphate of iron. > >Blue is copper, white is zinc. All are forms of sulfuric acid. Handle with >extremem care. Not so, dear lady. Sulfuric acid exists in one form only: H2SO4. The "vitriols" are iron, copper, and zinc sulfates. They don't have any hydrogen atoms sticking out on the left end of the formula, and so can't be acids in the conventional sense. (See _College Chemistry_, 7th. ed., by King/Caldwell/Williams, from D. Van Nostrand; p. 152) They are "salts": compounds between metallic ions and non-metallic ions. (op. cit., p. 153). Even so, these salts should be handled with at least the same care used with any other non-culinary chemical: don't work in the kitchen, keep the work area clean, keep hands and chemicals away from face, wash hands frequently, etc., etc. -- udsd007 at dsibm.okladot.state.ok.us Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Black clothing (was Re: Tax status & Sharking) From: una at bregeuf.stonemarche.org (Honour Horne-Jaruk) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 96 20:10:24 EST gealaclan at aol.com (Gealac lan) writes: > Yes wearing all black is period, for certain periods, especially for the > Spanish. If I recall it started during the Spanish inquisition and spread > across Europe. > > GL Time to repost this, I guess... meg at tinhat.stonemarche.org (meg) writes: > Just because a dye exists naturally doesn't mean it was used in period, > or even knowm about. There are some wonderful lichens that produce > glorious colors, but we have no documentation that they were used in > Europe during the middle ages for dyeing. Alas, sad but true. > > Black black, that elusive black. (Alizaunde, back me up on this one...) > How did the medieval dyer achieve black? ++++++++ <--- Emphasis added. A.de B. > With much difficulty, rarely, and only for a few weeks at best. > Overdyes of woad and walnut can approximate a black, but it will fade out > to grey rather quickly, or to dark brown. True black such as is achieved > wth modern dyes was virtually unknown. Clergy wore black...wool from > black sheep...which again was rarely true black but rather dark brown. > Remember we still have no verifiable account of tin as a mordant. Iron > saddens any color, and could have been used, however, to darken a > brown/blue conbination overdye. > == > In 1994: Linda Anfuso > In the Current Middle Ages: Megan ni Laine de Belle Rive > In the SCA, Inc: sustaining member # 33644 > Respected friends: The underline is because Megan is dead-on correct, for the middle ages. But something strange happenned about the time my good Baroness died (Sorry about the pun, Megan- from your point of view it's _will_ happen about the time you die, but that's not much help given the topic...) See, there was this Spanish Queen-type person who had obsessive-compulsive disorder centered around Roman Catholic nun's behavior, and the Courtiers wore a lot of black because she wigged out if they didn't, and it started being worn in other countries because those rich Conquistadores' relatives were wearing it (which made it The Fashion), and then the old spotty-ugly stuff didn't cut it with the High Ticket trade, and _then_ the Portugese started buying Silk from a different batch of Benighted 'eathans with different dye techniques and experimenting with new dyestuffs from the Americas- * Well, now Bloody Mary holds the throne of England and things are completely out of hand. (Black which is neither brown nor blue in cast- so-called `pure' black- will still be unavailable to the home dyer at the time of the War Between the States - CE1860. I have the Godey's ladies' books to prove it; they offerred several mixtures for ladies converting gowns to mourning, and the perpetual complaint was of the colour turning either "rusty" (brown) or "chalky" (blue). Inkily yours, Honour/Alizaunde/Una *Now you know why only Alizaunde de Bregeuf sells the cloaks Honour makes. Una would do Very Unkind Things to get hold of so impossible a colour...|-> Honour, known societally as Alizaunde, Demoiselle de Bregeuf; or Una Wicca (That Pict) From: priest at vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Black clothing (was Re: Tax status & Sharking) Date: 8 Jan 1996 17:59:43 GMT Organization: Vassar College Greeting from Thora Sharptooth! Quoting Megan, Alizaunde writes: >> With much difficulty, rarely, and only for a few weeks at best. >> Overdyes of woad and walnut can approximate a black, but it will fade out >> to grey rather quickly, or to dark brown. True black such as is achieved >> wth modern dyes was virtually unknown. Clergy wore black...wool from >> black sheep...which again was rarely true black but rather dark brown. >> Remember we still have no verifiable account of tin as a mordant. Iron >> saddens any color, and could have been used, however, to darken a >> brown/blue conbination overdye. [snip] >(Black which is neither brown nor blue in >cast- so-called `pure' black- will still be unavailable to the home dyer >at the time of the War Between the States - CE1860. I have the Godey's ladies' >books to prove it; they offerred several mixtures for ladies converting >gowns to mourning, and the perpetual complaint was of the colour turning >either "rusty" (brown) or "chalky" (blue). I have to disagree here. Overdyeing an existing gown can be considerably different from an original dyejob. There are several early American recipes for black dyes in _The Arcana of Arts and Sciences, or, Farmers' & Mechanics' Manual: containing a great variety of valuable receipts and useful discoveries, in the various departments of human knowledge; many of which were never before published_, by Dr. M. Parker (Washington, Penn.: J. Grayson, 1824). (Thank you, Mar Joshua, for sharing this source!) Dr. Parker says "The black commonly given to all kinds of stuff is that which is produced by some vegetable astringent, particularly galls, with the salts of iron; but many circumstances must be attended to in order to produce a full and good color." Then he goes on to describe several such recipes for silk, linen, and wool. It is also quite possible to produce a decent black on an undyed textile using materials available as far back as the Bronze Age. With my own eyes I have seen extremely deep "true blacks" on wool and silk result from the use of a minimally redacted sixteenth-century Italian recipe in _The Plictho of Gioanventura Rosetti_, utilizing simply iron fragments, vinegar, and oak galls. I direct you to the dyeings of Dame Elayne Courtenay (of Carolingia), and to her article in the _Pikestaff Arts and Sciences Issue_ of December A.S. XXVI (1991), "Instructions in the Art of Dyeing Black," pp. 51-53. Not everyone may happen to have Elayne's felicity with blacks, however; it's her best color. Whether, how, and how often true blacks were actually produced in periods before the sixteenth century, I don't know. I do know of one pair of men's pants from Hedeby (10th century Denmark) that were dyed with walnut hulls and iron, and of some early Byzantine samites that included black silk. Additionally, many early Coptic tapestry weaves are catalogued as "purple," although their appearance is a pretty convincing black. Perhaps they were overdyed purple and then saddened with iron. ************************************************************************* Carolyn Priest-Dorman Thora Sharptooth Poughkeepsie, NY Frostahlid priest at vassar.edu Austrrik Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or ************************************************************************* From: afn03234 at freenet2.afn.org (Ronald L. Charlotte) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Vegetable Dye Techniques Date: 5 Apr 1996 12:37:51 GMT Rebekah and Chip wrote: > And to those with some experience in the art of vegetable dyeing, a query: > How do you do it? > I have some blonde horse hair that I wish to dye green (to be used as shoulder > plumes for my new armor). I'm figuring I can put the horse hair in a sack of cheese > cloth and throw it into a big pot with some rich green leafy spinach. > Any input would be greatly appreciated. EXCERPTED FROM: _The Second part of Secretes of Maister Alexis of Piemount_ ANNO 1563 Reprinted in 1977 by Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Ltd., Amsterdam ISBN 90 221 0839 2 (I've come to the conclusion that this is the "Hints and Help from Heloise" of the Rennaisance) To dye Heare into a Greene coloure, Take freshe Capers, and distill theym, and washe your heare with the water of them in the sunne, and they will become greene. Or, since this is animal hair try this: EXCERPTED FROM: _The Secretes of the Reverende Maister Alexis of Piemount_ ANNO 1558 Reprinted in 1975 by Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Ltd., Amsterdam ISBN 90 221 0707 8 To dye the saied (hog) bristels yellowe, greene, or blew, or any other colour. Firste you must wasshe them, and let theym boyle in Alome water, as the other before: than take Ligustrum, and saffron, if you will have them yellowe. Indicum, or the juyce of elder berries, or walwort, or els of the flowers of Ireos, if you will have them blew. If you wil have them greene, take paynters greene, and dresse them as is above saied, assaying sometime if the coloure please you. And by this meanes you may dye them what colour you like. I hope this helps. I don't know what some of the ingredients are, myself. I've attempted but a fraction of the recipes in these books. al Thaalibi ---- An Crosaire, Trimaris Ron Charlotte -- Gainesville, FL afn03234 at afn.org From: dickeney at access1.digex.net (Dick Eney) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Vegetable Dye Techniques Date: 5 Apr 1996 09:47:41 -0500 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA In article <4juqng$27m at news1.ucsd.edu>, Rebekah and Chip wrote: >And to those with some experience in the art of vegetable dyeing, a >query: How do you do it? >I have some blonde horse hair that I wish to dye green (to be used as >shoulder plumes for my new armor). I'm figuring I can put the horse hair >in a sack of cheese >cloth and throw it into a big pot with some rich green leafy spinach. Whoa! :) According to the newspaper, spinach will dye Easter eggs a "grayish gold". For green, you could use carrot tops "greenish yellow". Sorry, they don't give a good green. That is a hard color to get naturally, oddly enough; perhaps that was why only elves wore green in Irish lore--the Irish were master dyers, and knew that it practically took magic to get a good fast green. However, two dyeings might do it if you dyed it with saffron first (for yellow) and then woad (for blue). I've read that different mordants will affect how yellow the saffron gets. BTW, thyme and orange peels both give "yellow", onion skins give "golden yellow", and peels from Yellow Delicious apples give "lavender". And red cabbage leaves produced "blue". Walnut husks "buff", tea "beige", strong coffee "brown" (darned strong coffee--my coffee stains are only beige). -- Tamar the Gypsy From: sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu (Dr. Bloch) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Vegetable Dye Techniques Date: 6 Apr 1996 17:18:44 GMT Organization: Adelphi University, Garden City, NY Rebekah and Chip wrote: >>And to those with some experience in the art of vegetable dyeing, a >>query: How do you do it? >>I have some blonde horse hair that I wish to dye green (to be used as >>shoulder plumes for my new armor). I'm figuring I can put the horse hair >>in a sack of cheese >>cloth and throw it into a big pot with some rich green leafy spinach. I don't know about spinach. Parsley might work -- it was widely used as a food coloring in the Middle Ages -- but I suspect it wouldn't last long. Dick Eney wrote: >Whoa! :) According to the newspaper, spinach will dye Easter eggs a >"grayish gold". For green, you could use carrot tops "greenish yellow". >Sorry, they don't give a good green. That is a hard color to get >naturally, oddly enough; perhaps that was why only elves wore green in >Irish lore--the Irish were master dyers, and knew that it practically took >magic to get a good fast green. However, two dyeings might do it if you >dyed it with saffron first (for yellow) and then woad (for blue). >I've read that different mordants will affect how yellow the saffron gets. Digging out my oldest dyeing source: MP: To dye woollen green, either a blue or yellow dye may be first given to it, MP: but the first is generally used because the yellow dye of the stuff MP: would injure the blue bath [and not vice versa?!]. The intensity of MP: the blue must ever be proportioned to the shade of green required. MP: When the blue dye is given, the yellow is given by some of the MP: processes already described. The cloth having the proper ground, is MP: washed in the fulling mills and boiled as for the common process of MP: welding; but when the shade is to be light, the proportion of salts MP: should be less. In this case, the quantity of weld should also be MP: less; but for all other shades it should be greater than for dying MP: simple yellow. MP: MP: Saxon Greens are obtained from the sulphate of indigo. From six to MP: eight pounds of quercitron, black oak bark, enclosed in a bag, should MP: be put into the bath for every 100 lbs. of cloth, with only a small MP: proportion of water. Just as it begins to grow warm, when the water MP: boils, six pounds of murio sulphate of tin should be put in, and in a MP: few minutes after about four pounds of alum; these having boiled five MP: or six minutes, cold water should be added and the fire diminished, so MP: as to bring down the heat of the liquor nearly to what the hand can MP: bear; after this as much sulphate of indigo is to be added as will MP: suffice to produce the shade required, taking care to mix it well with MP: the bath. The cloth having been previously scoured and moistened, MP: should then be expeditiously put into the liquor and turned very MP: briskly through it for a quarter of an hour, that the colour may apply MP: itself evenly in every part. By this method beautiful greens may be MP: dyed in half an hour. MP: MP: A fine Green for dying Silk. Take to one pound of silk, a quarter of a MP: pound of alum and two ounces of white tartar; put them together in hot MP: water to dissolve; then put in your silk and let it soak all night; take MP: it out the next morning and hang it up to dry; then take one pound of MP: fustic and boil it in four gallons of water for an hour; take out the MP: fustic and put into the kettle half an ounce of finely powdered MP: verdigris; stir it about for a quarter of an hour, draw it off into a MP: tub and let it cool; then put into that colour an ounce of pot ash; stir MP: it together with a stick; dip the silk therein till you think it yellow MP: enough; rinse it in fair water and hang it up to dry; then dip it in the MP: blue vat till you think it enough; rinse it again and beat it over the MP: pin and hang it up to dry. Thus you may change the shades of green by MP: dipping either more or less in the blue or yellow. For the green, take, MP: to one pound of silk, three ounces of verdigris in fine powder, infuse MP: it in a pine of wine vinegar for a night; then put it on the fire; when MP: hot, stir it with a stick and keep it from boiling; in this put the silk MP: two or three hours; or if it is to be of a light colour, let it soak only MP: half an hour; then take scalding hot water, and in a trough, with soap, MP: beat and work up a clear lather; in this rinse your silk; then hang it MP: up to dry; rinse it again in river water; beat it well, and when it is MP: well cleaned and dried, dress it. [I'm confused: which bath is which?] MP: MP: To dye Linen of a Green Colour. Soak your linen overnight in strong MP: alum water; then take it out and dry it; take woad, boil it for an hour; MP: take out the woad and put in one ounce of powdered verdigris, according MP: to the quantity you have to dye; stire it together briskly with the MP: linen; then put in a piece of pot ash, the size of a hen's egg, and the MP: linen will be of a fine yellow colour, which, when dried a little and MP: put into a blue vat, will turn green. Cotton and linen are, in another MP: process, scoured in the usual way, and then first dyed blue; after being MP: cleaned they are dipped in the weld bath to produce a green colour. As MP: it is difficult to give cotton velvet an uniform colour in the blue vat, MP: it is first dyed yellow with turmeric, and the process completed by MP: giving it a green by sulphate of indigo. MP: The different shades of olive, &c. are given to cotton thread, after it MP: has received a blue ground by galling it, dipping it in a weaker or MP: stronger bath of iron liquor, then in the weld bath, and afterwards in MP: the bath with sulphate of copper; the colour is lastly brightened with MP: soap. Yellow colours are rendered more intense by means of alkalies, MP: sulphate of lime and ammoniacal salts; but they become fainter by means MP: of acids and solutions of tin and alum. The "processes already described" for yellows amount to 6 pages, and I'm not going to type them all in, but here's an excerpt: MP: Yellow is usually imparted to woollen substances by a decoction of woad, MP: but as this plant yields its colouring principle with difficulty, MP: alkalies are employed to assist in its extraction. Alkalies are used MP: chiefly for this purposes in dying of linen or cotton, and their place MP: must be supplied by salt, sal ammoniac, and alum; when woad is to be MP: applied to animal substances which are dissolved in alkalies, lime is MP: sometimes used, to heighten the colours. A good yellow of different MP: tints may be procured by boiling woad with marine salt, lime or alum; MP: the salt produces the deepest shade; alum renders the colour brighter; MP: ammonia imparts a greenish hue to the bath; tartar gives a very pale MP: shade; and copperas changes it to a brown. Other yellow dyes mentioned are fustic (usually mixed with galls), tree fungus, acacia flowers, woad-verdigris-and-alum, alum-tartar-salt-and-weld, alum-tartar-and-weld, quercitron-and-alum, etc. Since the original poster specifically wanted to dye horsehair, I looked for that; the closest I found was MP: To dye Bristles or Feathers a curious Green. Take one ounce of MP: verdigris, one ounce of verditer, and one pint of gum water; mix them MP: well together, and dip the bristles or feathers therein, they having MP: been first soaked in hot water. From _The Arcana of Arts and Sciences, or, Farmers' & Mechanics' Manual; containing a great variety of Valuable Receipts and Useful Discoveries, in the various departments of human knowledges; many of which were Never Before Published_, by Dr. M. Parker, printed by J. Grayson, Washington, PA 1824. Note that this is NOT a period source; it's about halfway from us to the 1650 cutoff. The oak bark referred to is probably a variety widely available in the Midwestern U.S, but not necessarily in medieval Europe, and the various nasty and/or poisonous chemicals might not have been available 200 years earlier. But with those caveats, I thought it might prove helpful. Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/ Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University From: "Morgan E. Smith" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Copper-Ammonia Cloth Dyeing Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:30:44 -0600 Organization: Calgary Free-Net Hi. My name is Morgan the Unknown and I have a challenge for all you curious and/or experienced clothdyers out there. I've been doing some experiments with a copper-ammonia dye system that can, under good circs, yield a blue dye. I'm interested in seeing as many people from as many places do a small test version and send me a sample, with any notes, and I will send a sample of mine. COPPER-AMMONIA DYE 2 gallons water 1/2 cup household ammonia diluted in 1 cup water 4 oz ( or whatevers lying around) wet undyed wool yarn one of the following: 200 pre-1966 pennies (newer pennies don't contain enough copper, but do contain aluminum which alters the dye), 2-3 ounces of copper sheeting, 5-7 inches copper wire or 3-4 inch piece of copper piping. Or whatever else copper you can find. Combine the water, ammonia and copper in either an enameled canner or roaster that has no rust spots, or in a large plastic bucket with a lid. Warning: you cannot later use this container for any food related use. Also, you should not do this project inside your home. Ammonia fumes are toxic.Garages, porches or the plain outside is best; summertime is ideal. Here's where it gets tricky: the original recipe merely said to add the fibre and swish it around periodically over a period of days. Subsequent experimentation has given me the following additional advice: This dye, like woad and indigo appears to be improved by oxidation, so pull your yarn out for an airing fairly often. Also, I got grays with only the merest hint of blue until I allowed the mixture to sit for a couple of days BEFORE I put the fibre in. The liquid was abright blue, and the yarn took the dye much more quickly and vividly than prior attempts ( dark navy in two days, as opposed to medium gray over ten days.) Not to be bitchy, but apparently no-one's immune to the "secret family recipe" syndrome. Anyway, the artisans and craftspeople of the SCA are better than that, aren't we? So let me know how it goes (via a 3-6 inch piece of yarn) and I'll update if I find out anything new! Morgan the Unknown (the original LBC) From: jartificer at aol.com (Jartificer) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Copper-Ammonia Cloth Dyeing Date: 11 Jun 1996 13:29:52 -0400 What you are doing is staining your cloth in a cupramonioum complex solution. The blue you get is nice, but only lasts as long as there is some ammonia around in the fiber. Eventually, it will turn some shade of green as copper carbonate (the form in malachite) forms. While I am more pigment oriented, the recipe you describe uses period components, so it could have been done. Stale urine for the ammonia and a copper kettle as used for other dyes. Have fun and keep us up to date! Master John the Artificer John Rose From: powers at woodstock.cis.ohio-state.edu (william thomas powers) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Silk cloth Date: 3 Apr 1997 09:46:09 -0500 Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Science > Here's an interesting question... how easy is it to dye silk? Is >it like linen in that it doesn't take very well, or is it like cotton in >that it will hold the color for quite some time (well, nothing lasts >through too many washes)? > I ask, because it seems to be most economical to buy an entire >bolt of white, cut to need, and dye whatever color you wish. Would this >be feasible... or am I just indulging in wishful thinking? Silk dyes gorgeously! ---one of the reasons it was so precious--- Remember that it prefers ACID dyes like wool (*not* like cotton). Using natural dyes at our "dye-ins" we have got some colours that really contradict the "only muted tones are period" wilelm married to the spinster Arianwen ferch Hari From: eherring! at mindspring.com (Evan Herring) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Silk cloth/setting color Date: Thu, 03 Apr 1997 19:57:04 GMT gbrent at Kutta.Stanford.EDU (Geoffrey Brent) wrote: >Yes, silk takes some _beautiful_ colours, and I don't really like >to sew with anything else... But to reduce the amount of dye that >_does_ come out in the wash, I'm told that dissolving a good >amount of salt in the water helps. Anyone know if this is true ? Salt will definitely help set colors, even in "store-bought" clothes. I usually fill the kitchen sink with cold water, mix in a fair amount of regular table salt, then add the item of clothing to be "set." I leave it in for a while (maybe a couple of hours), then wash it as I intend to from then on. **Warning: I've never tried this with silk, though.** Magdalen of Cheshire From: gbrent at Kutta.Stanford.EDU (Geoffrey Brent) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Silk cloth/setting color Date: 3 Apr 1997 13:54:56 -0800 Organization: Stanford University, CA 94305, USA Evan Herring wrote: >gbrent at Kutta.Stanford.EDU (Geoffrey Brent) wrote: >>Yes, silk takes some _beautiful_ colours, and I don't really like >>to sew with anything else... But to reduce the amount of dye that >>_does_ come out in the wash, I'm told that dissolving a good >>amount of salt in the water helps. Anyone know if this is true ? > >Salt will definitely help set colors, even in "store-bought" clothes. >I usually fill the kitchen sink with cold water, mix in a fair amount >of regular table salt, then add the item of clothing to be "set." I >leave it in for a while (maybe a couple of hours), then wash it as I >intend to from then on. **Warning: I've never tried this with silk, >though.** I wash silks with salt, and it certainly doesn't seem to do any harm. I don't leave it to set, though; I just wash it in the minimum amount of water necessary, fairly quickly, rinse ditto. Although the water turns some fascinating colours the silk is just as bright and colourful afterwards, much to the dismay of those who have to look at my garb ;-) As always, wash like colours with like. Lightest first, darkest last. From: camino Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Silk cloth/setting color Date: 4 Apr 1997 04:42:50 GMT eherring! at mindspring.com (Evan Herring) writes: > gbrent at Kutta.Stanford.EDU (Geoffrey Brent) wrote: > >Yes, silk takes some _beautiful_ colours, and I don't really like > >to sew with anything else... But to reduce the amount of dye that > >_does_ come out in the wash, I'm told that dissolving a good > >amount of salt in the water helps. Anyone know if this is true ? > > Salt will definitely help set colors, even in "store-bought" clothes. > I usually fill the kitchen sink with cold water, mix in a fair amount > of regular table salt, then add the item of clothing to be "set." I > leave it in for a while (maybe a couple of hours), then wash it as I > intend to from then on. **Warning: I've never tried this with silk, > though.** > > Magdalen of Cheshire White vinegar is used with hand spun silk with good results. I don't know if it would change the color on commercially dyed silk, but it doesn't with the hand spun I've used it on. I usually use about one cup per gallon of water. I've also used it on wool and cotton - both commercial and hand spun, and on the bargain table cotton cloth. Rhiannan Lowery From: "Morgan E. Smith" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Silk cloth Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 07:41:58 -0700 Organization: Calgary Free-Net On 3 Apr 1997, Kim Pollard wrote: > Here's an interesting question... how easy is it to dye silk? Is > it like linen in that it doesn't take very well, or is it like cotton in > that it will hold the color for quite some time (well, nothing lasts > through too many washes)? > I ask, because it seems to be most economical to buy an entire > bolt of white, cut to need, and dye whatever color you wish. Would this > be feasible... or am I just indulging in wishful thinking? > > Kimberly One of silk's nicest properties IS that it takes dyes well. Not all dyes, and not absolutely consistently, but in a general sense, it takes colours well. My experience using plant dyes suggests that the colours differ from the shades obtained dyeing wool: onionskin with alum, cream of tartar and tin gave me a gold-yellow on wool, but I got a tangerine colour on silk fibre. Keep in mind that it is difficult to dye large quantities of woven fabric (you need a very large pot!) and also that many commercially made fabrics are treated with detergents and other things, so you will have to wash the fabric thoroughly before dyeing. Morgan the Unknown From: Chris Laning Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Silk cloths/setting color Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 22:33:31 -0800 Organization: Institute for Global Communications Gentle Cousins, If you don't mind using modern techniques to retain dye, there are two commercial preparations that may help. I first heard of these through a quilt mailing list, where color problems are common (since you often have different, strong colors right next to each other, or to white . . .) The first is called *Synthropol*, and I bought a half-pint bottle for around $5 in an art supplies store. It's used for washing fabric before dyeing to help remove sizing, etc. It *also* will remove any "loose" dye that is not firmly bound to the fibers, and it is definitely the first thing to use on anything light colored that something else has "run" onto. (As in "Aaauuuuggghh! All my underwear is PINK!") The second is called *Retayne*, and is somewhat harder to find. I know Pine Tree Quiltworks carries it, and IIRC they have a Web page. (No connection, but I've heard good things about their mail-order service.) Retayne will *set* color, and seems to do a considerably better job at it than vinegar, salt, and other "home remedies." There are small amounts of it -- or of something similar -- in Cheer detergent ("with ColorGuard") and possibly others. Note that Rit has packaged up both of these in packets containing about 2 Tablespoons (enough for 1 laundry load) and sells them for something like $3.50 per packet. The Synthropol is called "Run-Away" and the Retayne is called something I can't remember at the moment. The overpriced versions are better than nothing, but if you do much dyeing it's well worth searching out a better source. Quilters I've talked to seem to be pretty well agreed that "setting" color with vinegar or salt doesn't work very well, if at all. These things *are* sometimes included in dye baths, but for different reasons (pH adjustment, a "leveling agent" whatever that is, etc.) If you want to stick to period methods, a vinegar rinse certainly won't hurt any dye that is *not* pH-sensitive, though I don't know which are and which aren't. The common period method for getting a more intense color that doesn't run seems to be to dye the same piece several times in fresh dyebaths, rinsing in between until the color stops running. (lady) Christian de Holacombe Windy Meads, Cynagua, West ____________________________________________________________ O Chris Laning | + Davis, California From: kkozmins at mtholyoke.edu (Kim C Kozminski) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Silk cloth/setting color Date: 8 Apr 1997 23:00:10 GMT Organization: Mount Holyoke College Both Synthrapol and Retayne are products of Pro Dye and Chemical- their phone # is 1-800-2-Buy-Dye. Roen From: powers at woodstock.cis.ohio-state.edu (william thomas powers) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Mustard Colored Fabric (Dye experiments) Date: 8 May 1997 17:18:26 -0400 Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Science My messenger having failed in his task has found me on this bridge watching the tide turn and the odd feud victim float by. Being a kind (no remarks as to *what* kind...) person I have "let him go" and will endevor to deliver the contents myself... Re: the type of pots used to dye in the medieval period >BTW, I've never seen it written that iron pots (which dull dyes and >roughen the wool) were what caused peasants to wear dull autumn colors. >IMHO, though, porcelain-coated dye vats would seem 'way more expensive >and unreachable for peasants than iron kettles. That may be why lower >classes dressed dull, while the wealthier wore bright colors. There may >be a TI article in there somewhere. >Regards, Lady Meara al-Isfahani Gracious Lady Meara; perhaps investigation into what was used in period times as dyepots would be a good first step. Although we are conditioned to immediatly think of cast iron as the "old cauldron", cast iron only starts showing up in widespread use in the 1400's. Prior to that most "cast" pots were brass or bronze and so would leach copper, tin and zinc into the dyevat if used. However for large tanks that would not exceed the temperature of boiling water *lead* was usually the material of choice! Built up pots constructed of sheatmetal could be wrought iron or bronze if small but tended more toward bronze for larger ones. (there is also other time-period shifts of usage). None of this covers the use of "pottery" pots which were common and came in a range of sizes--Theophilus mentions one large enough to put a goat in to collect its urine (circa 1120 A.D.). My first guess as to a large dyevat for a professional dyer would be lead followed by bronze. For a small "local" dyer I would probably *guess* pottery followed by bronze. I would think that iron was very un-likely especially for a professional who needed a large vat---even after cast iron became available! Remember that using your cooking pot for dyeing may result in dying! So a peasant may not want to use a very expensive iron pot when a cheaper one may be available. wilelm the smith, married to a spinster who has been teaching spinning for over 20 years and pressed into service on a regular basis to provide dye pots, vats and materials. (we did a traditional indigo tank once that was around 3/5ths my production....) I welcome information to correct any "assumptions" I may have made as this is *not* my primary area of interest! Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 04:23:07 -0700 From: "Kevin D. Walmsley" To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Period Colours (Scarlet) Here is a little period dye info I just found on the web. ....................................................................... Dye History from 2600 BC to the 20th Century by Susan C. Druding Originally written for a Seminar presented at Convergence 1982 2600 BC Earliest written record of the use of dyestuffs in China 715 BC Wool dyeing established as craft in Rome 331 BC Alexander finds 190 year old purple robes when he conquers Susa, the Persian capital. They were in the royal treasury and said to be worth $6 million (equivalent) 327 BC Alexander the Great mentions "beautiful printed cottons" in India 236 BC An Egyptian papyrus mentions dyers as "stinking of fish, with tired eyes and hands working unceasingly 55 BC Romans found painted people "picti" in Gaul dyeing themselves with Woad (same chemical content of color as indigo) 2ND and 3RD Centuries AD Roman graves found with madder and indigo dyed textiles, replacing the old Imperial Purple (purpura) 3rd Century papyrus found in a grave contains the oldest dye recipe known, for imitation purple - called "Stockholm Papyrus". It is a Greek work. 273 AD Emperor Aurelian refused to let his wife buy a purpura-dyed silk garment. It cost its weight in gold. Late 4TH Century Emperor Theodosium of Byzantium issued a decree forbidding the use of certain shades of purple except by the Imperial family on pain of death 400 AD Murex (the mollusk from which purpura comes) becoming scarce due to huge demand and over harvesting for Romans. One pound of cloth dyed with Murex worth $20,000 in terms of our money today (Emperor Augustus source) 700's a Chinese manuscript mentions dyeing with wax resist technique (batik) 925 the Wool Dyers' Guilds first initiated in Germany 1188 the first mention of Guilds for Dyers in London 1197 King John (of Magna Carta fame) persuaded Parliament to regulate dyeing of woolens to protect the public from poor quality goods 1200's Rucellia, of Florence, rediscovered the ancient art of making purple dye from lichens sent from Asia Minor (similar to Orchils?) 1212 the city of Florence had over 200 dyers, fullers and tailors. A directory of weavers and spinners was published as well. 1290 the only blue dye of the period, Woad, began to be raised extensively in Germany. The 3 major dyes were now: woad, madder and weld. 1321 Brazilwood was first mentioned as a dye, source from East Indies and India. (the country of Brazil was named for the wood found there, not vice versa) 1327-1377 Edward III, "Royal Wool Merchant" offered protection to all foreigners living in England and to all who wanted to come to help improve the textile industry. Early 15th Century Cennino Cennini of Padua, Italy described the printing of cloth (block printing) in his treatise called "Method of Painting Cloths by Means of Moulds" 15th Century Aztecs under Montezuma conquered the Mayans. 11 Mayan cities paid a yearly tribute of 2000 decorated cotton blankets and 40 bags of Cochineal (insect dye) each. 1429 the 1st European book on dyeing "Mariegola Dell'Arte de Tentori" was published in Italy 1464 Pope Paul II introduced the so-called "Cardinals' Purple" which was really scarlet from the Kermes insect. This became the first luxury dye of the Middle Ages just as Imperial Purple (Murex) had been for the ancient world. 1472 Edward IV incorporated the Dyers' Company of London 1507 France, Holland and Germany begin the cultivation of dye plants as an industry 1519 Pizarro and Cortez find that there is cotton in Central and South America. They send back brightly printed fabrics showing that the Indians knew about block printing prior to the Conquest. Cochineal from Mexico and Peru now being shipped back to Spain. 1614 dyeing cloth "in the wood" was introduced in England: logwood, fustic, etc. 1630 Drebbel, a Dutch chemist, produced a new brilliant red dye from cochineal and tin. It was used at Goblein (Paris) and the Bow Dyeworks (England) 1631-33 The East India Co. began importation of calico from Calicut, India to England. At first they thought the fabric was linen, not cotton. Mid-1600's English Logwood cutters in Honduras lead a dangerous life (danger from Spaniards, hurricanes, swamps, disease) in the Bay of Campeachy, but could get very rich 1688 James II, of England, prohibited exportation of un-dyed cloth from England to help bolster the home industry for English dyers over that of the Scottish dyers. 1689 the first calico printworks was begun in Germany at Augsburg and was later to grow into a large industry From: "JulieAnna D. Rohde" To: Subject: Re: ANST - Organic dye Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 11:11:49 -0500 You know, your squire does costume research. I have recently read about three red dyes. Madder is believed to have been the most common red dye in England. The dye was made from the roots of Dyer's madder (Rubia Tinctorum L.). Sources say that it usually produced a warm brick-red, but could also produce peach, yellow, violet, brown and tan and could boost greens and blues. This plant was not native to England, but it is believed that it was introduced early and was grown in Anglo-Saxon time, so that would be close to 'period' for your persona. Sorry, I don't have any sources for the plant or recipes for making the dye, but its a name for you to work with. Another dye was 'Kermes'. It was derived from the kermes shield louse (Kermes vermilio), a Mediterranean insect which was imported to England under the name 'grain'. A third dye was made from brazilwood which was obtained from the heartwood of the trees in the Caesalpinia family. It was imported into Europe from the late 12th C on. These dyes were all found on fabric pieces recovered from excavations in London. Unfortunately, the fabric samples were all wool or silk because linen does not survive burial well. The only linen pieces so far recovered have been preserved because they were partially burnt or were covered in pitch. No dyes have been able to be identified from these sources. Of course the linens that have survived in treasuries and now in museums have been the shroud and tablecloth type pieces which were left natural or bleached white. So, dyes specific to linen have not been mentioned in anything I've read so far. Hope this helps. My major source for the above is: Medieval Finds From Excavations in London: Textiles and Clothing c.1150-c.1450, Elisabeth Crowfoot, Frances Pritchard and Kay Staniland, Museum of London, 1992. Date: Fri, 8 Aug 97 22:26:56 PDT From: Holly_Sullivan at elric.maximumaccess.com (Holly Sullivan) To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Dye supplies > I want to try my hand at dying. I've read enough now to make a start, but > I need a source for materials. Dharma Trading has a web page and a free catalog that is very helpful. I thing the url is http://www.dharmatrading.com. Only connection I have with them is that I could gladly spend a fortune there. :-) Date: 25 Aug 1997 14:06:10 -0700 From: "Marisa Herzog" To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: murex (was Voided Velve personal opinion says that the by then increasingly rare technique of dyeing with murex for Imperial purple would have been an even more expensive cloth...). The way velvet is made is thusly: a Discover Magazine in the past few months had a very small article on a cool middle-eastern archaeological find. Apparently in a small bay somewhere near Turkey, there have been found artificial reef/aquarium type thingies, where they believe murex snails were raised in the Middle Ages, specifically for the dye trade. Sorry I do not have better details, I was looking at the magazine in the lunch room and it has disappeared. -brid Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 15:28:01 -0700 From: Brett and Karen Williams To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: murex (was Voided Velve Marisa Herzog wrote: > Discover Magazine in the past few months had a very small article on a cool > middle-eastern archaeological find. Apparently in a small bay somewhere near > Turkey, there have been found artificial reef/aquarium type thingies, where > they believe murex snails were raised in the Middle Ages, specifically for the > dye trade. Sorry I do not have better details, I was looking at the magazine > in the lunch room and it has disappeared. > -brid Actually, the location of the find doesn't surprise me-- from what I remember, the murex trade was centered in Cypress (the eastern Mediterranean), which to this date is partially Greek, partially Turkish. Cypress' port towns are littered with underwater rubbish piles of murex shells. While paging idly through a textile book in a bookstore a month or so ago, I read the assertion that a murex-dyed tunic in the time of Imperial Rome cost the equivalent of US $200,000. One wonders why Roman law bothered to limit murex purple to the Imperial family and Senatorial rank by statute-- only a few others could afford it! The book also said that the murex trade pretty much died out after the fall of Constantinople to the Turk in 1453. If anyone's interested, I could trundle off to the local Borders and flesh out the citation. Gee, another excuse to wander through one of my favorite bookstores! ciorstan Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:43:25 -0700 From: KyraKai To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Wool Yvette Baker wrote: > I would like to attempt to dye some wool. I have some pale green > with brownish highlights, and I am wanting to dye it black. Do you care if the dye is period. Period black dyes are very corrosive to fibers and also tend to fade. > what type of dye should I use? My recommendation would be to use RIT black dye. It is REALLY permanent. (read: be very careful what you spill it on) Cold or hot process? If the wool is already spun or woven, I would use Hot process. It has the wonderful side effect of putting a final "finish" to the cloth and the thread should never shrink again. If it is wool fiber that has not been spun yet, use cold process (0f course, around here there is only cold water in the winter), with minimum agitation, or you will NEVER get it apart to card, spin then weave. (all this learned in the school of bad experiences) I've also heard of using vinegar and salt as a final wash to set the > dye in some fabrics. Is this true for wool? I have used both salt and vineger as mordants on wool, and they seem to be equally effective. Wool takes a dye so darned easily, compared to some of the other fibres, and the dyes are not so ephemeral with wool either. Remember, what ever you choose to do, do an effective moth proofing after, or all your hard work will be eaten away. Kyra Kai Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 10:13:01 -0700 From: Brett and Karen Williams To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Wool Carol at Small Churl Books wrote: > >> Cold or hot process? > >> As the seasons > >> change from warm to cold, I am wishing that I had made a heavier > >> cloak. :-} So, I'm attempting to use some wool that I got at a garage > >> sale to defray the cost. I thank any and all for your help. :-) > > Did you catch the earlier discussion of fulling? If you are looking for > warmth, and you have enough fabric that you can tolerate some shrinkage to > get warmth and softness, you may want to full your fabric first. I've used > the hottest wash, cold rinse, machine dry hot (repeat) method. Then you can > always machine wash it warm & gentle forever after. > > Although I have not tried it, I would think that dying would work better if > you washed the chemicals out of the fabric first. (Aside from the fact that > the cloth feels so much better without them.) If I may add to what Lady Carllein has said-- if you are intending to dye your wool, you're going to be exposing all those little barbs on the hair shaft to heat and to some extent agitation, which are two of the conditions necessary for forming felt. I would exercise a little caution and cut a sample of the fabric for a test run through the entire process before just tossing the entire swath into a hot dyebath. I realize that the original cloth is an inexpensive piece from a garage sale-- however, you are proposing to invest a certain amount of your precious and valuable time into the end result of a cloak. If your fabric is made up of a worsted rather than a woolen thread (definitions available on request!), then shrinkage is going to be moderate rather than amazingly vast. Additionally, it's my understanding that Rit is formulated as a 'union' dye, which means its chemical properties are geared for any and all sorts of fiber with which it comes into contact. If I might put forth a suggestion, Dharma Trading Company (who has a website-- and will happily send forth a big catalog upon receiving an e-mailed message) is a firm that specializes in dye. They not only carry a number of lines of dyes and assorted chemicals, but also dye-suitable fabrics and pre-made garments. If you go to http://www.yahoo.com and enter Dharma into the search field, their site will pop right up. I am not connected with Dharma other than having perused web site and catalog. I would suggest buying a dye whose chemical properties are specifically formulated for wool rather than Rit. At any rate, I would also suggest a burn test of your mystery garage sale wool to determine if there is any proportion of non-natural fiber contained therein. For the most part, dyes will not take consistently on linen or any of the man-made fibers other than rayon. ciorstan (who is not a dyer other than two forays into tie-dying as a teenager with Rit, and was sadly disappointed when the LOUD results faded terribly on washing...) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 15:42:24 -0400 (EDT) From: SNSpies at aol.com To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Natural Dyes--Kamala and Fustic Hi, Melinda. Woad and weld are both very easy to grow. Seeds are available from Richter's in Canada (email: orderdesk at richters.com web site: www.richters.com phone: 1-905-640-6677). Dyeing with them are covered well in Rita Buchanan's A Weaver's Garden (Interweave Press, 1987) and Jill Goodwin's A Dyer's Manual (Pelham Books, 1982). If you can't find these, I would be happy to send you the pertinent pages. I, too, would like to know sources for kamala and fustic. Cheers. Nancy (Ingvild) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 08:43:18 -0700 From: Nancy Lynch To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Irish Dyestuffs This listing is from a nicely researched piece called "Traditional Dyestuffs in Ireland", written by Brid Mahon, and enclosed in a book called "Gold under the Furze", edited by Alan Gailey and Daithi OhOgain, Dublin; Glendale Press, 1982 (e-mail doesn't do Irish accent marks over letters so / = accent over previous letter:) common name botanical name Irish name PURPLE Flora Dandelion Taraxcum offidinale Caisearbha/n Deadly Nightshade Atropa Belladonna Mioto/g bhui/ Elder (berries with alum) Sambucus nigra Trom GREEN Dock Sorrel Rumex acetosa Samadh bo/ Foxglove Digitalis purpurea Me/araca/n na mban si/ Nettles Urtica dioica Neanto/g BLUE Devils bit(leaves prepared like woad) Succisa pratensis U/rach bhallach Woad Isatis tinctoria Glaisi/n Yellow Iris (roots) Iris pseudacorus Seileastram BLACK Alder(bark with copperas) Alnus glutinosa Fearno/g Blackberry(young shoots with salts of iron) Rubus fruiticosus Sme/arna dubha Oak (bark and acorns) Quercus petraea and robur Dair BROWN Seaweed (don't have botanical) Dulse Birch Betula pubescens Beith White waterlily(roots) Nymphaea alba Duilleog bha/ite YELLOW Autimn crocus Crocus sativus Cro/ch an fho/mhair Marsh marigold Caltha palustris Lus bui/ Bealtaine St. John's Wort Hypericum sp. Luibh Eoin Bhaiste I repeat, I am not a dyer, but wishing to use probable colors in my garments and giving information to others who wish to dye "Irish" colors has made me very interested in the colors these dyes make. I hope this is helpful.:) Sonas ort! (Happiness on you!) Mistress Lughbec ni Eoin Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 9:13:03 -0500 From: "I. Marc Carlson" Subject: Rit Dye (was Fabrics, Clothing and techniques of the 15th Century) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca My wife (Dunstana Talana the Violet) informs me that if you follow the instructions scrupulously with Rit dye, it works well. There is a mordant in it that should set the dye. It's been suggested to her that if you stick a cup of vinegar or salt in per box of dye it can help, but she's never found it necessary. If your dye is being blotchy and uneven, you may want to a) keep it constantly moving in the water, so that nothing settles (the stuff touching the sides of the pot won't absorb die as well as the stuff completely surrounded by dye) and b) make absolutely certain that the material is completely clean -- even a little dirt of grease can screw up the dye job. When you are done, completely rinse the material repeatedly to get out the extra dye. As for the dye remover, it works well for some things, but she has had some trouble with it getting dye out of wool (she finally got a bolt of "electric Aqua" colored wool to come out to a not-loathsome green-blue before she gave up. Some of the print dye on some linens she's used it on have come out cleanly, others weren't touched - even with repeated uses. In either case, follow the instructions *scrupulously* and you should be ok. Marc/Diarmaid O'Duinn lib_imc at centum.utulsa.edu Subject: Re: ANST - natural dyeing ... reds & purples Date: Wed, 01 Jul 98 09:33:07 MST From: jhartel To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG Raven asked: > how do you use either the bug or the cactus to dye with? I bought my cochineal from DHARMA dyeing company. They come all dries out in a nice plastic bag. I just put some in one of those balls used to make teas in, or I have made a small cotton bag and put themin it. Then I throw the entire thing in a pot and boil for a while. I reduce the temp under 180* (candy thermometers are great for this) and put my wool in. The richness of the colour depends on how long you leave your woolin and which mordants you have pre-mordanted your wool in. Moriel*** Subject: ANST - cochineal Date: Wed, 01 Jul 98 11:47:35 MST From: "N.D. Wederstrandt" To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG Dropping by because I heard my name mentioned.... Cochineal is easily found in Texas and Oklahoma on Prickly Pear (Opuntia). You need to look for cactus that has fuzzy white cottony looking patches on them. those are the bugs. The whote cottony stuff is a protective covering they use. Get something large and thin (so you can scrape them off without touching the needles on the cactus)and scrape them off into a zip log bag. If you squish any you see bright magenta red. When you've gotten enough and you take them home you will need to roast them (alive) in your oven. Put them in a pan and crank up the over to about 450. Not a low oven or they will crawl around trying to find a way out. Watched a friend do this with interesting results.... After they are crispy dead, feel free to use them any way you want. Kermes which is a european relative was found on kermes oaks (don't know who was named for whom off the top of my head. They are relatives and produce the same lovely colors, the kermes not being as strong as the cochineal. There's actually a great deal of material that makes excellent dyestuffs here in Ansteorra. Clare Subject: Re: ANST - natural dyeing ... reds & purples Date: Fri, 03 Jul 98 19:56:50 MST From: Deborah and Robert Wade To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG >how do you use either the bug or the cactus to dye with? > >raven Insect: collect the insect and kill (easiest way is with fingernail polish remove) and dry in the sun for two to three weeks. Then place the desired weight of insect in the dye vat. (I usually put them in chessecloth bags so that bug parts are not in my dyestuff). Dye as usual. Cactus: Generally the fruit or the flower (species dependent) are collected and placed in the dye pot with and steeped. The plant matter is removed and dye is ready to use. Subject: Re: ANST - natural dyeing ... reds & purples Date: Sat, 04 Jul 98 17:36:34 MST From: Deborah and Robert Wade To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG >Using bug parts or plant parts: >do I have to add some kind of chemical to make it colorfast or just >water, and what temperature of water? To get the dye into the water it must be boiled (simmered) but you do not want to boil to wool it turns to felt. The water must be warm to hot when it is added but not boiling. Cochineal is colorfast without a mordant, but I generally add alum to the dye bath to be on the safe side. Rhiannon Subject: Re: ANST - natural dyeing .. Date: Sun, 05 Jul 98 18:13:10 MST From: jhartel To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG raven asked: > How can I get in touch with Dharma Dyeing Company? If you are net connected try this address: http://www.dharmatrading.com/ * OR TRY* DHARMA TRADING CO. POB 150916 SAN RAFAEL, CA 94915 Tel: (800) 542-5227 (USA) :: Tel: (415) 456-7657 (Elsewhere) :: Fax: (415) 456-8747(Everywhere) Moriel*** Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 17:10:55 -0700 (MST) From: starsinger at webtv.net (theresa sorrell) To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Fibers to thread Another excellant book on fibers is Rita Buchanan's "A Weaver's Garden" or "A Dyer's Garden." The first book deals with descriptions of fibers and how to raise, prepare and use them. The second book deals with growing, preparation and use of dye plants. Both are excelland and both are also from Interweave Press. www.interweave.com will get you their website and access to their in print books and magazines. Starsinger Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 9:53:00 -0600 From: KATHARINE WHISLER To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: RE: stopping the dye from bleeding From: Kristi Kelly >I have dyed several yards of silk gauze purple with Rit dye. >I dyed it in a salt solution and I have soaked it in a 4 to 1 vinegar >bath. >But still it bleeds! What else can I do to fix the color? >Elspeth Your problem may stem from the fact that you used Rit dye. Rit is a "union" dye: a mixture of acid dye (which dyes protein fibers-- wool & silk as well as nylon) and direct dye (which dyes cellulose fibers-- cotton, linen, etc.) This makes it great for dyeing things like nylon/rayon blend lace, and so forth, but means that when you dye a fabric that takes up only one type of the dye you wind up washing away half of the dye in the dyebath because it didn't stick to anything. If you aren't used to this, you may think that an awfully large amount of the dye is washing out. Actually, the type of acid dye they use in Rit isn't exactly the most washfast anyway. If that isn't the problem, then it sounds like you have a dye fixation problem of some kind. First of all, are you sure the fabric is in fact silk? If it is actually acetate or something, there is no way Rit is going to do much. Was the fabric clean before you dyed it? Silk is covered with a natural gum called sericin that can inhibit dyeing, and sometimes textile mills add other things to it, resins to retard wrinkling, mothproofing agents, etc. If they remain on the fabric in huge quantities, you will have trouble getting the dye to take. Always prewash fabric you intend to dye. If you can get a detergent that has no optical brighteners (basically, florescent dye) and no fragrance, all the better. (Dish liquid often works well.) Did you get the dyebath hot enough? If it wasn't hot enough, the chemical reaction that binds the dye to the fiber won't do it's thing, and you will have inadequate fixation of the dye. For silk, you want it at around 185 degrees farenheit. (If you get it hotter, you may damage the fiber.) Did you keep it at that temperature for at least 15 minutes to give it time to do its thing? People often run into trouble with this when they dye in the washing machine. Did you put the acetic acid in the dyebath rather than just soaking the fabric in an acetic acid solution after you removed it from the dyebath? Basically, if the dye didn't take on this first try, it probably isn't worth it to try to "fix" whatever dye is still on the fabric. (You could try steaming it as is done with silk-painting scarves, but it would be a pain.) If I were you, I would wash and rinse the fabric very well, until it looks like you have gotten out most or all of the unfixed dye left on the fabric. Then, I'd let it dry and assess whether I was satisfied with whatever color I got. If not, then I would redye the fabric. I hope this is helpful. Modern chemical dyes, I know about! --Kathy/Katerina Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 21:26:15 PST From: "T Cardy" To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: stopping the dye from bleeding >I have dyed several yards of silk gauze purple with Rit dye. > >I dyed it in a salt solution and I have soaked it in a 4 to 1 vinegar >bath. > >But still it bleeds! What else can I do to fix the color? > >Elspeth Unfortunately red base dyes are the most unstable of all forms of coloring (red hair dye is also very unstable). I had the same problem with a piece I dyed scarlet. The people at Dharma Trading (who I consider to be pretty expert at this) tsked tsked at me and I suspect rolled their eyes when I told them I was dyeing with RIT. The problem with RIT it that you have to use such a strong solution to achieve a deep color that it will continually bleed, until all the red pigment has found a happy medium. The only thing the Dharma people came up with was to strip the color and use one of their more stable dyes especially used for silk. Try calling them at 800 542-5227 (they're in San Rafael, CA and are very cool people to wotk with) T. Van Vlear Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 12:48:15 -0600 From: froggestow at juno.com (Roberta R Comstock) To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: stopping the dye from bleeding When using Rit, which is formulated to dye both animal and vegetable fibers, it may help if, in addition to your target fiber (the silk, in this instance) you simultaneously dye something of the opposite type (such as some cotton muslin or a hank of cotton yarn) to take up the second component of the dye. I am using this method for some basket reed I need to dye this week. I will put some unspun fleece or wool yarn or wool fabric into the same dye pot to take up the opposite component of the Rit dye in hopes that there will then be less unbonded dyestuff lurking on the surface of my reed waiting to smear and run when I weave with it. I'll let you know how it works. Hertha From: "Anglin" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Dying help Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 04:00:17 -0800 >I was wondering if there are any period ways to die fabric without heat. >If anyone could point me toward sources it would be appreciated. Especially >ones on the internet since our local library tends to turn nothing up for >me ever and cash resources are low. > >Agnes Most period dyestuffs require heat to extract the color from the plant or insect materials, and continued heat to get the color to penetrate and bind to the fiber. dyeing is a chemical reaction, of sorts, and heat speeds things up. Any cold water process would heild only the palest of colors, and the colorfastness would probably be rather poor. If you are thinking of a program for children, try Kool- aid dyeing, it is not period, but it is safe, since no toxic chemicals are involved. Take two packages non sweetened Kool-aid, and 1 pint of vinegar, mix well and put into a squeeze bottle with a fine spout. (Like the Ketchup/ mustard containers you used to see in restaurants.) Wet out your clean wool well-it must be completely dampened, or the colors will not stick well. Grab a handful, squeeze out the excess moisture, and lay it on a large sheet of saran wrap. "Paint" your colors on using the squeeze bottles. When done, wrap or in saran wrap to make a flat packet, and hang in a sunny window for a few weeks- the warm sunlight sets the color. (Works best in summer) If time is tight, microwave for a little while to set the color (You will have to experiment to get the time right- it will vary depending on the size of the packet.) Good Luck! Mistress Elen Greenhand MKA Ellen Anglin Middle Kingdom From: drgnflydsn at aol.com (DrgnflyDsn) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Dying help Date: 23 Jan 1999 18:30:52 GMT >The reson I asked was because I don't have anything big enough to die >fabric in >on top of the stove or a fire. Does anyone have any ideas where I mind find >something like that for not too much money. It'd probably have to come out of >the tax return which also needs to cover a tent. Any suggestions would be >appreciated. >Agnes If you don't want to use your washing machine and want to stove top dye then I would recommend using a canning pot. It's big enough to use for several yards of fabric. They only problem is it's a little hard to keep stirring the fabric do to the height of the pot. I usually use a step stool so I can stir on the stove and not put strain on my back. Now, a few words of caution. Never use utensils that you cook with for dying. If your using a powdered dye do not mix it in the kitchen. Take it outside it's to easy for it to get air born and all over the kitchen. For an excellent source of dye and materials I really love Dharma Trading at http://www.dharmatrading.com/ Very helpful folks especially if you don't have much experience. Ronda ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dragonfly Design http://members.aol.com/DrgnflyDsn Masks, Historical Clothing Patterns, Garb From: drgnflydsn at aol.com (DrgnflyDsn) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Dying help Date: 24 Jan 1999 04:48:23 GMT Agnes posted: >Thanks a lot That's a great idea. I just have one question. Can I still use >thepot for canning after I've dyed things in it. No. I wouldn't recommend it. They are pretty cheap to purchase in terms of cook ware and you can find them used at thrift stores. Save your good one for canning. Ronda Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 15:13:10 -0500 From: Melanie Wilson To: Blind.Copy.Receiver at compuserve.com Subject: Some books on natural & period dyeing I found some English small press publications that might be of interest to you folks, contact me direct if you want to buy any of them. Mel All prices are British pounds approx 1 pound = 1.6 US dollars, plus postage. They are A5 slim volumes.at 2.50 pounds each. Dyer in the Garden-how to grow common dye plants & dye with them The begineer Spinner- Basic fleece knowledge The Medieval Dyepot-history of traditional British dyes The spinners Rhymerie- somgs and poems about spinning, weaving and shepherding Knitting handspun yarns- how to calculate the right amount for a garment, plus basic patterns. Everything in the kitchen sink-dyeing with kitchen waste The insatiable spinner- spinning with the likes of llama, alpaca, angora, dogs, cats etc The dyers palette- how to get the whole spectrum from natural dyes A Shepherd's miscellany-, crafts rhymes, stories & traditions on Shepards & sherherding A Calender of common dye plants, -Nettle, dock,etc plants for dyes from Britain The foreroom rug- heirloom hooked rugs Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 00:46:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Elonwen ap David To: SCA-ARTS at UKANS.EDU Subject: onion skins I haven't been able to read my E-mail for a while, otherwise I would have answered earlier to the request for proper onion skin-dye instructions. To dye with onion skins is very simple, you don't even need a mordant to get a nice, bright yellow. Take plenty of onion skins (I'd say at least two litres of tightly packed onion skins per 150-200 grams of wool). The more onion skins you have, the brighter colour you get, well to some point. Put the onion skins into at least 5 litres of cold water. The water should be almost full of onion skins, but keep in mind that there should be enough water for the wool to be covered later on as well! First you must bring the onion skin-water to boil. You can let it boil for a little while, but it doesn't really matter. Then you put in the dry wool as a skein (tie the skein at least from four points before putting it into the water, otherwise it gets all tangled up when you stir it). You can take the onion skins away before adding the wool if you need the colour to be very even: the yellow might get brighter where the onion skins touch the wool, but it doesn't always happen and when it does, the spots can hardly be seen. Keep the water in about 90*C for at least half an hour. From one hour to two is the optimum. The last stage is to let the wool cool down slowly and then rinse it. You can do it either by letting the wool stay overnight in the dye water or to gradually lower the temperature of the rinsing waters(that is the first rinsing water to which you put the wool straight from the dye water would be 80*C, the next one 60*C, then 40*C and 20*C). You don't need a thermometre for that, it is very easy to estimate close enough the right temperature for the rinsing water. If you've let the wool cool down by itself, be sure to rinse it properly in cool enough water (about room temperature). Finally you can (if you wish) put some vinegar (about two tablespoonfuls) into the last rinsing water, it improves the colourfastness a bit and it also may brighten the colour. If there is something that I forgot or if you need more precise/clearer/better instructions, please ask! Elonwen Subject: BG - Dying tip Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 12:49:06 -0500 From: Craig at apple.com, Robin Reply-To: bryn-gwlad at ansteorra.org To: "Bryn Gwlad List Serve" For those of you who sometimes dye cloth or fiber, I found this handy tip - Using Rit to dye wool: Many will tell you it is not good for wool. But there is a trick to it. Don't follow the written directions. Instead, dissolvee your dye and on a low simmer, heat the fiber and dye for 12 hr. or overnight. Then let it stand until completely cool. It will exhaust the dye that way. From: "Hrolf Douglasson" To: Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] OT Authenticity Police: dye colours. Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:34:06 +0100 You want authentic screaming colours 10 hot pink try kermise or its american cousin cochaneal. its very bright neon yellow or green Weld produces the brilliant yellow when dyed in a ceramic pot and then double dye to get the green....add woad for blue. orange is also a double dye weld then madder. They are disgusting...A Couple of the menfolk in our group use these colours and although we keep trying to BAN them on grounds of taste they are perfectly doable with the dyes available in England pre 1066 I play a lot earlierr than the SCA. Vara who suffers from seeing limegreen trousers done with an orange top at some shows. And don't forget polished linen can look shiney. From: lilinah at earthlink.net Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:02:09 -0700 To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] OT Authenticity Police: dye colours. Tara/Magdalena wrote: >I know full well that there were bright colors in period. But, there's >a difference between brights and neons. The fact that it might be >physically possible to get "hot pink" like the stuff that 12 year old >girls wear doesn't mean they did it in period. Do you know of an >example of a neon color in illustration or dye recipe? I don't know >of any. "Neon" colors have additional UV reflecting chemicals added, so, no "day-glo" colors in period. But bright colors, yes. Pastels could be produced but were undesirable until the 16th century. Pastels generally came from a spent dye bath and would have been for those who couldn't afford a fresh dye. Rich saturated colors came from fresh dye baths with lots of dye material in it. Rich saturated colors were more expensive and more desirable. >And, is there any evidence that cocheneal ever made it to Europe in the >mere century that there was contact? It's a Mexican bug, so I think >it's unlikely that it was common, if available at all. Isn't kermise >Egyption? Cochineal is indeed from Central America, but is a scale insect that is very closely related to kermes and produces a nearly identical color. It was imported into Europe early in the 16th century and rather quickly replaced the more expensive kermes in the 16th century. Kermes is not Egyptian, although kermes dye was used in Egypt. A number of related scale insects producing similar colors came from various regions around the Mediterranean. There's even a related scale insect dye from Poland. The most common source for kermes, as I understand it, was what is now Turkey. For those dyeing today, cochineal is a perfectly acceptable substitute for kermes. Cochineal is expensive enough, and I don't even know if kermes is even available. >With what frequency were dyestuff other than madder, woad, >weld and saffron used? Saffron was not commonly used in Europe or the Near East as it is not a fast dye (that is, it fades with light and with washing) and it was very expensive. Fast colors were desirable in period in Europe and the Near East. Weld was the most common source of Near Eastern yellow. There were several other good yellow sources, although without as rich a color, such as dyer's broom, which was also used in Europe. Madder was a common dye and a common trade item throughout Europe and the Near East. It produces a warm red (an orangey red), while scale insects produce a cool red (cherry red or magenta). Depending on the chemical composition of the soil in which it was grown, the color produced by madder can range from orange to tomato soup red to deep rich red. Most dyes require a mordant so that the dye "bites" into or bonds with the fiber. The most common mordant was alum, another important trade item throughout Europe and the Near East. It produces a fairly bright true color. The fiber, yarn, or fabric must be mordanted before it is dyed, or the dye will wash out or light fade. There were a few other mordants, but alum was the most common. Iron saddens, that is greys, the color. Tannins give it a slightly warm brown cast. Copper based mordants makes it greener, but can cause the fiber to deteriorate rather quickly. Tin as a mordant didn't come into use until the 17th century. Chrome, which use is now discouraged in home dyeing because it is so toxic, wasn't used until much later. Both tin and chrome produce very bright colors. Woad was common in Europe. Indigo was common in India and the Near East. Because indigo produces a stronger color than the same amount of woad, indigo was imported into Europe as a luxury dye. Indigo and woad contain similar chemicals and produce similar blues. Indigo does not require a mordant - in fact, in the dye pot it is yellow. The cloth turns blue when it is pulled into the air and the dye oxidizes. Indigo overdyed with madder produced the dark dull purple wool tapestry-woven into many Egyptian tunics. So far none of the samples analyzed are purple with murex. I suspect murex was reserved for more luxurious cloths. Indigo overdyed with weld or another strong yellow dye produced the common greens. Indigo overdyed with henna produced a dark brown and a black common in the Near East. Anahita Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 11:29:37 -0500 From: johnna holloway To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cochineal was cochaneal There is a neat photo essay on cochineal at http://wpni01.auroraquanta.com/pv/caledonia/cochineal There was a photo essay in Saveur also some years back. Johnna Holloway Johnnae llyn Lewis > On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, Gorgeous Muiredach wrote:> > > Thank you for the most interesting tidbit on this. > > As I pointed out in another mail to the list though, these references > > appear to be for colouring and dying fabrics. The use I see right now are > > for foodstuff :-)> > > "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" wrote: > Well, yes, but you're still going to have to go to fiber arts supply to > get it. It comes in whole bug form, extract, or powder, depending on where > you get it from (and it smells nasty).> Margaret From: Louise Craig [lcraig at iname.com] Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 10:58 PM To: bryn-gwlad at ansteorra.org Subject: RE: [Bryn-gwlad] dyeing linen If you interested in natural dyeing, especially the hard to dye colors, check out this book. I saw this guy and some of the fabrics he dyed at a costume seminar at Williamsburg - fantastic colors! The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing Traditional Recipes for Modern Use J.N. Liles 0-87049-670-0 Louise Craig (one know as Liadaine of Cul Mor) Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:37:01 -0700 From: "Wanda Pease" Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Re: Indigo To: "Cooks within the SCA" CIBA Review 85, 1951 " History of Indigo" CIBA is/was the giant Swiss Chemical Company (now Ciga/Geigy who make my migraine meds) who make dyestuffs. "In the history of the dyeing industry indigo holds a unique place by reason of its irresistible rise to supremacy among dyestuffs and its equally rapid dethronement by the modern chemical colours. Though well-known to the craftsmen of antiquity, it was so precious that it remained in rare use even in the Middle Ages, but the discovery by Vasco da Gama (1498) of the sea route to the East Indies and the European settlements in the Antilles and on the continent of North America put it on the market where it ousted woad, its most dangerous competitor, only to be in turn defeated by the rapid advance of the coal-tar colour industry. Like woad and the aristocratic purple, to which it is related, indigo is one of the oldest vat dyes known to the craft having already been employed in prehistoric days; but it was not till thousands of years later, after the synthesis of indigo had been established, that it became evident that indigo, woad and purple were not only closely related in technical respects but belonged to the same group of dyestuffs. Both the indigo and woad plants which yield a blue dye, contain indican, that is to say a kind of ester or glucose compound of indoxyl and sulpheric acid or glucose respectively, from which by decomposition indoxyl and then by oxidation indigo is readily obtained. The juice extracted from the purple yielding mollusks, Tyrian purple, with which in ancient times the robes of emperors, kings and general were dyed, also contains a derivative of indigo, vis. 6-6dibromoindigo (Ciba Review No 4, page 129) The sub-continent of India, noted for its age-long dyeing craft, is not only the home of the indigo plant proper (Indigofera tinctoria, but also the oldest centre of indigo dyeing in the Old World (cf. page 3088 CIBA Review #85). It is believed that indigo first reached the ancient world together with precious luxury articles imported from the East in the last few centuries B.C. though the quantities received in the Mediterranean countries must have been very small on account of the high prices realized. Indigo is first mentioned as a paint pigment in Vitruvius' "De architectura", a work dating from the end of the first century B.C. and general supposed to be based to a large extent on older Greek Sources..." ..."Realizing the great economic importance of woad, chiefly grown in southern France, Picardy, Northern Germany and especially in Thuringia and contributing substantially through taxation to the revenue of their countries, the princes and Governments prohibited the employment of indigo. Only in England, where little woad was cultivated, did the introduction of indigo meet with no resistance; in fact, a Bill passed in 1581 provided that, for the purpose of dying woolen material black, woad alone or woad and indigo (nele, alias blew Inde) should be used as a bottoming. On the continent of Europe, however, drastic steps were taken to keep the new dyestuff out, very heavy penalties being announced for instance in France against defaulting merchants and dyers in answer to the complaints lodged by the estates of Languedoc in 1598. In Germany its prohibition was justified on the grounds that the indigo used by dyers in the orpiment vat (cf. page 3077) was injurious. Thus the imperial police regulations issued at Frankfort-on-Main in 1577 referred to 'the recently discovered injurious and fraudulent, devouring and corrosive colour' as 'the devil's colour' and instructed all governing bodies to see to it that cloth-dyers in every town and state should refrain from using it." It goes on to say that indigo wasn't very popular before da Gama's voyages because it was terribly expensive and woad, even though it took more of it, gave much the same result for less. It was also used as an astringent for wounds. I just got a whole load of CIBA Reviews Via ILL and am in the process of Xeroxing all that appeal to me. Regina Romsey > I had thought that Indigo might be of New World origin, but I guess it > just showed up in the same time frame as a result of the European > Voyages of Discovery opening up new areas. I'm surprised, since this > would be one of the few dyes that could be used to create blue colored > foods according to earlier conversations here, that indigo wasn't > imported along with the other Asian spices such as pepper. > > Stefan Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 02:02:20 -0700 From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: [Sca-cooks] Indigo To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Stefan, indigo is an Old World plant. It's origin appears to be South Asia. It was very commonly used within the SCA time frame in many parts of Asia - bearing in mind that the Middle East is basically Southwest Asia - and in North Africa, and thence to Spain. Indigo was a trade item into Europe, but was considered expensive, partly because of protectionist practices in some places (protecting their woad production). Indigo was desirable in large part because a little bit of indigo dyes considerably more cloth than the same amount of woad. It was sometimes used to make paint for manuscripts - by the Spanish, for example, in their wonderful spacy art - i'm forgetting the time period - but all the people have huge saucer eyes and the artists used only about 5 colors of paint - vermilion, crimson lake (alizarin) (a cool red, whereas vermilion is a warm red), indigo, a bright yellow (i'm not sure of the source - there are a couple possibilities, all toxic), white, and black. Anahita a persona proudly wearing indigo dyed clothing Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 23:27:28 -0400 From: Daniel Myers Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [Fwd: [EK] Dying linen with saffron] To: Cooks within the SCA On May 9, 2005, at 10:34 PM, Martin G. Diehl wrote: >>> From: Baron Ernst Nuss von Kitzingen >>> >>> Can anyone please lead me to some sources regarding >>> dying linen with saffron? >>> >>> First, I need information regarding dying silk and/or linen with >>> saffron. Not alternatives, not suggestions for similar colors but >>> actually dying silks and linens using saffron. I'll forward this question to my lady (she does all the silkewerk in this family), but I can say for a fact that silk takes up saffron color very nicely. A couple of times in the past she's put water in the mortar I used to grind really fresh saffron and then dyed a skein of hand-reeled silk with it. It doesn't take much saffron at all to do the trick and the color turns out incredibly rich. - Doc -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Edouard Halidai (Daniel Myers) Sent to the Florilegium by: jbrmm266 at aol.com -----Original Message----- From: Terri Morgan To: 'Tricia Emery' ; Tines of the Trident (Tines of the Trident) Cc: Tegan (Laura Franks) ; Manx Camp Sent: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 23:26:35 -0400 Subject: [marinus] Period dye pictures Regia Angliorum's DMC dye equivalents http://members.regia.org/dyes.htm Thora Sharptooth's lichen dyes: http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/image/lichens.jpg her madder on silk: http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/image/mirabels-hlad.jpg weld & weld/woad: http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/image/laurel-garters.jpg and a pic of her "misc." on wool: http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/image/plaid.jpg color wheel of natural "authentic" dyed wool: http://www.42nd-dimension.com/NFPS/nfps_colours.html Hrothny Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 23:04:41 -0500 From: ranvaig at columbus.rr.com Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Favorite herb books To: Cooks within the SCA A Dyer's Garden by Rita Buchanan Not just period dyes, although many are. Ranvaig > I'd like to use a book store gift certificate to improve my herb book > resources. I'd like ones that are thorough and have good details for edible > or medicinal herbs. Info on dye herbs would be a bonus! What are your > favorites? From: Stephanie Ross Date: May 5, 2006 8:10:50 PM CDT To: stefan at florilegium.org Subject: dyeing comments for the Florilegium From a Trimarian list: Date: Tue May 2, 2006 11:08am(PDT) Subject: Re: Dye Question Anyone ever come up with a period dye combination that will create something resembling "apprentice" green? Just wondering. Signy Yes, as a matter of fact we have had great success with the green created by overdying indigo with goldenrod. Winfield and I did a shibori demo using indigo, and I brought the goldenrod that was harvested just before last years hurricane. It gave a lovely green. I did add some rabbit bush that was harvested at the same time. It is a native yellow dye plant used out west, and surprisingly is growing in my area. I just threw it in the pot with the goldenrod. To save time at the demo, I boiled up the goldenrod and the rabbit bush before the event and only brought the liquid. I'm at work right now, but if you want some references for the greens, I have them on my computer at home and would be happy to send the info this evening if you want them. Cait To add on to what Mistress Caitlin said; I have found in further experimentation a simple method. Dye first with goldenrod or dyers broom using an alum mordant until an you get a yellow as intense as the green you want. You may need to let the fabric dry overnight and do a second or third soak in the color. Let the finished yellow completely dry for at least a full day ( a week would be better) then wash it to remove any left over mordant. Then make a batch of slightly weakened indigo and dip the fabric in for only short periods, letting it line dry between dips (just a couple of hours not over night). This will let the indigo completely oxidize and the fabric dry to reveal the true color. You will be surprised how little indigo it takes to turn yellow to green. This method is time consuming, but I find it gives you more control over the final product. -Winfield Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:32:52 -0600 From: "Sue Clemenger" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Favorite Herb Books To: "Cooks within the SCA" There are two books related to natural dyeing that I'd strongly recommend, vis-a-vis using garden plants or wild finds. The first is "A Dyer's Garden," by Rita Buchanan, and the second is "Wild Color" by Jenny Dean. If you can only get one, go for "Wild Color," as it's more comprehensive (although slightly less plant-your-own oriented). --Maire Edited by Mark S. Harris dyeing-msg Page 70 of 70