Donna Fillion

alberta, canada

LEYDEN 98: Another (Procedure)

Clean the wool with fullers plant, and hold at your disposal some lamellose alum. (Then) grinding the interior part of gall-nut, throw it in a pot with the alum, then put in the wool and let it remain several hours. Take it out and let it dry. Follow this procedure first: Having ground the lees (from wine) and having placed them in a vessel, pour in sea water, agitate and set aside. Then decant the clear water into another vessel and hold it at your disposal. Taking the alkanet and placing it in a vessel, mix with the water from the lees until it thickens conveniently and becomes as though sandy. Then place the product in a vessel, diluting it by estimation with the preceding water which comes from the alkanet. Then, when it has become as though slimy, place it in a small kettle, add to it the remainder of the alkanet water, and leave until lukewarm. Then plunge the wool in it, lay aside several hours, and you will find the purple fast.

INTRODUCTION:

  • Method 1: Will the tartaric acid and residual grape tannin in lees make a one bath acid dye with Alkanet on wool? Compare this to…

  • Method 2: Cream of Tartar and Grape Tannin, a direct modern substitution

    or…

  • Method 3: vinegar or acetic acid and oak gall tannin (historic method recently popularized by Michel Garcia)

 

Stockholm 86: for purple

Boil asphodel and natron, put the wool in it 8 drachmas at a time, and rinse it out. Then take and bruise 1 mina of grape skins, mix these with vinegar and let stand 6 hours. Then boil the mixture and put the wool in.

INTRODUCTION:

Asphodel and natron may be a mordant of sorts; a tannin in the roots’ skin and a source of metals (heavy) in the root proper. In modern dyeing, grape skins are not considered to be a fast dye. Was there something to this recipe that improved upon the fastness of the anthocyanins of purple grapes that we do not incorporate into today’s methods? Was it “okay” to have an article dyed this way fade so quickly? Was this colorant used for ancient “fast fashion”?