> It's pretty likely that if you were wearing these colors in most of the > Middle Ages, you wouldn't have dyed them. You'd have bought the fabric > already dyed by a specialized dyer, or brought undyed wool or woven fabric > to the local dyer. The exact sequences and roles (who dyes, who weaves, > when those steps occur, and when it ends up in the consumer's possession) > would vary from one time to another and one place to another.
I absolutely agree with Robin here. Some people did do their own dyeing at home. In general, however, the fabric was generally bought already dyed. > If you want to know how the dyer would have achieved the colors, again for > most of the Middle Ages, you're dealing with madder for most red shades > and woad for all blues. Your bluish violet would have been made with some > combination of those two, possibly with overdyeing. Except that madder gives a more orange-red in various shades. And bluish-violet, depending on the actual shade, could be achieved by other dyestuffs...logwood being one of them. But I don't know when logwood came to be used as a dye so the time frame you are talking about is important. Dyeing in period is a fascinating subject and if you love chemistry and doing experiments, natural dyeing is a lot of fun. Diana www.RenaissanceFabrics.net "Everything for the Costumer" _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
