HERB - Re: Dyeing

[Wendy Freeman/Otte]

Apologies for the long message - but the discussion hit a deep trigger...

Dyeing is simple, yet fascinating.  It is no more (or less) dangerous than any
other use of herbs, with the same caveat: know what you are working with, and
take appropriate precautions.

The mordants available in medeival times were alum, iron, tannin, copper, and
tin.  All of these mordants can be "dangerous" when in a concentrated enough
form (even tannin - tea juice!), but are relatively safe once you dilute them
- except the tin.  While I am careful with the other mordants, I make a point
to wear gloves and treat tin like a toxic chemical.
Chrome is so dangerous, I refuse to use it.  (Besides, it is well outside my
period of research - a nasty modern discovery.)

If you are playing in the kitchen, stick to pickling alum, and iron from a
mistreated cast iron skillet (leave a little water in the bottom, let it go
rusty, then use it as a dyepot) as your mordants.  Alum is neutral - it just
allows the dye to hold to the fiber.  Iron will "sadden" the colors, while
making them stick.  If you want to play with the more poisonous mordants, go
out to your local salvation army, buy a set of old pots (bigger is better),
and mark them with the poison symbol so that your entire household *knows*
what you are brewing on the stove.  Copper brightens & greens the color, Tin
just brightens. 

As for dyestuffs - there are the lesser dyes (the common plants found wild in
the fields, which the Dyer's Guild looked down upon), and the Greater Dyes
(the plants that were cultivated by the Dyer's Guild for their color). 
Onionskin and Lady's Bedstraw are lesser dyes (try to regulate the sale of
onions!), Indigo and Madder are Greater dyes.

Actually, any plant will produce a dye - most are just boring beige.  The fun
comes from trying to figure out which plants (or which parts of which plants)
produce non-beige colors, and which ones last without fading too quickly. 
(Did you know cinnamon sticks create a delicate peach dye?)

The Cochineal bug (one of my favorites to prove "pink is period") lives on
cacti in Central America.  It produces a brilliant pink-to purple color.  Only
the female produces the dye, and large quantities are required to make a
strong dye.  It is chemically identical (ok, there are some *tiny*
differences) to the Kermes bug, which lived in trees in Europe - Spain, I
think.  It is also chemically similar to the St John's Lac bug that lives
around Poland/Russia.  The Kermes bug was nearly hunted out of existance by
ignorant dyers (a lesson for us!), and is no longer easily available.  So
Cochineal is an acceptable substitute.  (Did you know that cochineal is
food-safe?  The dye was "rediscovered" by the food industry - which is why we
have red M&Ms again.  We're eating bug juice...I'll eat that M&M, if you don't
want it!-)

Indigo came from India (hence the name), and was not available beyond
Byzantium/Egypt until (help! a date - 1400's? 1500's?  past my timeperiod). 
Woad, indigo's rival, has a convoluted history, which Mistress Agnes has
summarized beautifully.  Woad is chemically similar to indigo - weaker color,
but better grip on the fabric.  (That's why some jeans companies are going
back to woad from indigo - it doesn't fade as fast.)

Brazilwood also came from India (I think - look it up before quoting me).

Logwood is a New World import - produces a dusty purple to black color.  It
requires a cocktail of mordants to make it stick, which they did not discover
right away.  For this reason, Queen Elizabeth denounced it as an inferior dye.
Also the indigo/madder/weld dyers (combination produces an *expensive* black)
of England protested this cheap black dye, which was ruining their monopoly on
black cloth...

The roots of Madder and Lady's Bedstraw produce an orange-to-red dye.  Madder
was one of the first cultivated dyeplants, and seems to have been available
all over.  Lady's Bedstraw is a wild cousin, used in Scotland - since the
Dyer's guild couldn't prevent it from growing.

Back to the original issue: For exploring dyes in the kitchen, try these:
onionskin (yellow & red), cinnamon sticks, turmeric, oregano (fresh), red
cabbage, and frozon blackberries.  If you have an herb garden, throw some of
the leaves, flowers, or roots of your gathered plant in a small pot, toss in
some pickling alum and a small skein of wool yarn, heat it up, and see if it
produces a color.  Take 3 tiny snips of the dyed skein, toss one in a cup of
vinegar (acid), one in a cup of dissolve baking soda (base), and one in a cup
of ammonia (strange base) - and see if any wondrous transformations occur. 
One more suggestion: write your discoveries down.  I'm still trying to
reproduce some of my earlier, non-documented dyes.

Well, I'd better stop...if you want to hear more - email me.  Dyeing is my
favorite craft.  I don't know everything, but I'm always open to a new
challenge.

-Lady Wyllow MacMuireadhaigh
wyllowmacm at netscape.net

Dyeing is an art - it becomes a science when you need another batch of exactly
the same color!

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