Catherine Olanich Raymond wrote:
Not "dyeing" it yellow, blue, etc. But using yellow, or blue colored starch preparations to starch them.
I attended a fascinating workshop awhile back with someone who's been working with some of these colored period starches -- and she says that using the colored starch does, indeed, permanently color the cloth.
My educated guess on how white the lace should be is: as white as you can get it without modern "brighteners" -- the compounds added to modern detergents that reflect ultraviolet light and thus make whites look whiter. I believe that the fashion for "ecru" colored lace (ivory or tan) is a Victorian thing, intended to create an impression of age. There seems to be lots of evidence of Renaissance people expending a good deal of effort to make white linens actually as white as possible with the technology they had.
-- ____________________________________________________________ O Chris Laning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Davis, California + http://paternoster-row.org - http://paternosters.blogspot.com ____________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
