Well they are easier to get more colours because you are not competing with other colours or variations of colour. I really like dying gray wool because I get a gradient of colour that gives more depth but getting a nice light pink on a medium gray would not be possible. So it was and is easier to start with a blank canvas than a coloured canvas. I would venture a guess that pour people used what ever they had, dyeing with what ever they could get free or cheap. The rich had the good stuff with good colour and also better quality wool, spinning and weaving. I always wonder when I see a modern spinner skirt a fleece what ancient people would have thought of all the wasted wool. People did do tedious tasks over time. They had many helpers in children and old relatives that would spend there time doing something useful not watching TV or playing video games. There where many hours in the day and many days in the winter. I can't imagine a person sleeping on straw or even a straw mattress when they had wool with some vegetable matter in on hand. I can't see them throwing it away for vegetable content or for even some dung. Now I have no books or scalars to quote I can think through logically what I would do. I have friend that has an interest in Viking times. She tells me that there is no proof that the over dress of women had a belt (or anything else to control it).So the say that there wasn't one. She says they were not stupid and the first time the woman bent over the fire to tend it or the food her dress would have been in the fire. She would have done something to get it under control. Logic would say they must have done something but we have yet to find the proof of what it was.
Ann Shepherds' Spring Farm North Gower On. Canada http://shepherdsspringfarm.ca/ _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mirjam Bruck-Cohen Sent: March 22, 2008 12:45 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [fibernet] source for the notion that natural colored wool can't be dyed Elizabeth Wayland Barber , is a great knowledgeable person ,, i have her books About URUMUCHI and Women`s work The first 20000 years. mirjam > This is too funny! I was looking for something else on the internet and > found this "The naturally pigmented wools do not take artificial dyes well > (Ryder 1969a,495)." This was in the book Prehistoric Textiles by E. J. W. > Barber 1991. I have heard Fiberartists and Bedouins here say the same thing. the whiter wools are esier to dye , mirjam [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
