HERB - Re: herbalist V1 #539y
Katherine Blackthorne
kblackthorne at hotmail.com
Mon Oct 16 07:59:24 PDT 2000
----Original Message Follows----
From: Jenne Heise <jenne at mail.browser.net>
> Sorry, sometimes I get a kick out of the way people don't stop & think.
We
> all learned in grade school that the "secret" of indigo dye was part of
what
> made it so expensive for so long, but if it's just mashig up plants,
there's
> no secret, now is there?
>Uhm, not all of us learned that in school. I don't reemmber that hearing
that indigo was particularly expensive at all. You may be thinking of
'Tyrian purple' of which the Encyclopedia Britannica sez:
"Tyrian purple, a dyestuff of great importance in antiquity, was
obtained from a secretion of a sea snail (Murex brandaris)." Like Kermes
and Cochineal, Murex was expensive in period because of its origin: a
limited crop of sea crustaceans.
You're right -- indigo was when purple got cheaper, wasn't it? My mistake.
But I remember something about Spain/Italy & secrecy in the beginning.
Maybe it was just "the secret of using indigo"... hey, I'm trying to
remember a 5&6th grade "history" lesson, I may get some of it wrong. <grin>
>Dyeing is one complicated and interesting art, which is why there are
'secrets' to it: I've seen experienced dyers point out that what looks
like a minor variation to the recipe and proceedure can acuse a very
different result in theresulting dyed stuff.
>> I think dying is facinating stuff, and I may try it someday. (Closest
I've
> come is helping an old roommate onion-dye her socks yellow.) But I'm
afraid
> of mordants!
I can see being afraid of chrome mordants, which are modern. However,
dyeing in an iron pot or using pickling (food grade) alum as a mordant
shouldn't be that intimidating.
Jadiga (not a dyer, just a-stander-around-while-other-people-dye)
--
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"I do my job. I refuse to be responsible for other people's managerial
hallucinations." -- Lady Jemina Starker
============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.
============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.
More information about the Herbalist
mailing list