Experiments in dyeing
Sep. 16th, 2007 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frualeydisYesterday ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bippimalin came over to help me dye linen fabric with madder. or rather, with the preparations, we haven't reached the madder stage yet. In the Uvdal 31 grave there was also a linen shift, which had remnants of tannin and madder in, showing it to once have been dyed peach, orange, red or something like that. This (of course) had to be tested so yesterday we boiled coarse linen fabric (12threads/cm, the original had 8 threads/cm!) with soda and then immersed it in a tannin bath, achieved with green tea. Oak gall apples would have been a more period source for tannins, but also much more expensive and hard to get.
The fabric soaked in there over night and was then put in a mordant bath with alum. Now I'm rinsing it in the washing machine and when that's done I will put it in a bath with 1,5 kg madder, which has been lying in water for 24 hours.
This alone shows why dyed linen was extremely uncommon, it was too expensive for a fabric mostly used for underwear. Madder wasn't that costly, but if you need half again the weight of the fabric it still becomes rather expensive. And of course I have no idea how the dye will take or how well it will stand washing, an important thing when it comes to linen clothing, since it doesn't "clean itself" the way wool does.
The dyeing process is also pretty hard on the actual fabric, you need to remove the part of the fibre that makes it strong and shiny.
So, even if there are enough examples of linen being dyed (Egypt, this shift, the lining in the Queen Margareta gown etc), I still think that it was pretty uncommon. Outside Italy and the eastern mediterranean linen seem to have been used only as underwear and headdress and while I think the latter may sometimes have been dyed, it would probably have been easier to opt for a silk veil if you wanted colour, since the linen ones would have been expensive too. Underwear, on the other hand, would have needed to be laundered many times and dyeing which weakens the fabric and (possibly) wasn't hardy would probably not have been very common. It's not like we see a lot of dyed underwear in medieval paintings either.
But now I'm off to grind 1,5 kg (dry weight) wet madder into smaller pieces. Yummy!
PS. Woad may be an exception, there are more finds of woad dyed linen than other colours, and woad is the only natural dye that really "bites" on linen.
PPS. I'm NOT saying that there never was dyed linen, I'm talking about what was probably the most common in the Middle Ages. I'm a professional historian, I never say "never".
bippimalin came over to help me dye linen fabric with madder. or rather, with the preparations, we haven't reached the madder stage yet. In the Uvdal 31 grave there was also a linen shift, which had remnants of tannin and madder in, showing it to once have been dyed peach, orange, red or something like that. This (of course) had to be tested so yesterday we boiled coarse linen fabric (12threads/cm, the original had 8 threads/cm!) with soda and then immersed it in a tannin bath, achieved with green tea. Oak gall apples would have been a more period source for tannins, but also much more expensive and hard to get.The fabric soaked in there over night and was then put in a mordant bath with alum. Now I'm rinsing it in the washing machine and when that's done I will put it in a bath with 1,5 kg madder, which has been lying in water for 24 hours.
This alone shows why dyed linen was extremely uncommon, it was too expensive for a fabric mostly used for underwear. Madder wasn't that costly, but if you need half again the weight of the fabric it still becomes rather expensive. And of course I have no idea how the dye will take or how well it will stand washing, an important thing when it comes to linen clothing, since it doesn't "clean itself" the way wool does.
The dyeing process is also pretty hard on the actual fabric, you need to remove the part of the fibre that makes it strong and shiny.
So, even if there are enough examples of linen being dyed (Egypt, this shift, the lining in the Queen Margareta gown etc), I still think that it was pretty uncommon. Outside Italy and the eastern mediterranean linen seem to have been used only as underwear and headdress and while I think the latter may sometimes have been dyed, it would probably have been easier to opt for a silk veil if you wanted colour, since the linen ones would have been expensive too. Underwear, on the other hand, would have needed to be laundered many times and dyeing which weakens the fabric and (possibly) wasn't hardy would probably not have been very common. It's not like we see a lot of dyed underwear in medieval paintings either.
But now I'm off to grind 1,5 kg (dry weight) wet madder into smaller pieces. Yummy!
PS. Woad may be an exception, there are more finds of woad dyed linen than other colours, and woad is the only natural dye that really "bites" on linen.
PPS. I'm NOT saying that there never was dyed linen, I'm talking about what was probably the most common in the Middle Ages. I'm a professional historian, I never say "never".
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 02:35 pm (UTC)I have managed to get a dark purple on linen using tannin and iron mordants as dyes, and a light green with copper verdigris, but you're right about the indigotin from woad having taken the best.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 02:51 pm (UTC)/Eva
no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 03:50 pm (UTC)/Eva
no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 07:53 pm (UTC)Overall the results were remarkably good, with the exception of one of the recipes for black, which turned out blotchy in many colours. Especially krapp, which supposedly is difficult to use on linen, turned out very nice.
She has a report on her investigations.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 08:12 pm (UTC)And I'm pretty too.
/Eva
no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 10:29 pm (UTC)Which recipe are you using? The one my friend tested was from Plictho.
This is a selection of her evaluation of the colour she got:
Med tanke på att tyget stod i badet över natten var det kanske inte helt lyckat- tyget blev flammigt. Själv var jag dock glatt överraskad. De mörkaste partierna på tyget hade en vacker rostrosaröd färg som bådar gott inför framtida försök. Ytstrukturen påverkades ej för ögat. Krapptyget tålde sol bättre än både bresiljan och safflorn. Det fällde mycket i tvätt och tålde gnidning dåligt. Enligt min smak var krappresultatet finare än både bresiljan och safflorn efter alla eftertesterna. Visserligen hade färgen bleknat betänkligt men medan bresiljan och safflorn blivit lite ointressanta och egentligen såg ut som urtvättade tyger emanerade en fin ljusare variant av ursprungsfärgen som för mig inte såg ut som en urtvättad variant utan s.a.s. som en helt egen färg.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 04:29 am (UTC)This since the few cellulose dyeing recipies I've seen either contain chemicals that aren't allowed to be used outside of laboratories nowadays or they contain several steps that makes it cumbersome to do in an apartment. And I couldn't find a single madder only recipe for cellulose dyeing. :)