| Appreciating Early Fabric
Dyes with Paula Barnes |
We interrupted Paula
Barnes' busy spring show schedule to quickly pick her
brain about some of the history behind the colors used
in reproduction quilt fabrics, and we turned up some
interesting facts.
Like anything based in history, learning more about how
our favorite reproduction colors came about can give us
a greater appreciation for this very important fabric
category. Many of these colors are represented in
Paula's REFLECTIONS
OF AN ERA and BONNIE
BLUE BASICS collections. Here's what she had to
share:
- Dating back to 2600 BC or earlier, fabrics were
dyed using two plants, indicum (meaning from India)
and woad. Both produced shades of blue. An
archaeological site in Denmark showed the use of
woad probably in the first century.
- An alternative purple color was produced using
murex, which was very expensive. Because of its high
cost, sometime during the third century other dyes
were produced; however the emperor of Byzantium,
Theodosius, made it illegal for anyone other than
the royal family to wear purple, a crime punishable
by death.
- Later during the 1200's lichen was used in
Florence, Italy to create purple dyes along with
weld, an European plant which was used to produce a
yellow dye.
- During the 1500's insects became a source for
dying fabrics. Mayans ground up insects to produce a
red dye known as cochineal red. Pope Paul 11 used
kermes insects to create a scarlet color dye know as
"cardinal purple".
- In the 1700's England began growing indigo because
it was expensive to import. By mixing iron salt
prussiate of potash, they created what was called
Prussian Blue.
- Madder dye which produces a red color was (and
still remains) one of the most popular natural dyes.
The earliest textile believed to have been dyed with
madder root was found in the tomb of King Tut.
- Mordants used to help the fabric take the dye were
metal salts that contained iron, tin and chromium.
Alum was most commonly used to expand madder into a
range of colors from red to rust. Iron was used with
madder as well as logwood to darken or dull colors,
producing blacks to dark browns, while tin produced
bright reds, oranges and yellows.
- It wasn't until the late 1800 that natural dyes
began to be replaced with synthetic dyes when
William Henry Perkin developed a mauve color dye.
Synthetic dyes were less expensive to produce,
forever changing the way fabric dyes were made.
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