Historical Dyes

[Lady Kett]

Saw this linked on another site, thought I would share. Some info/book(let)s on historical dying techniques. I am quite tempted to buy the series just because it looks interesting!
Historical Dyes Series

The author is a member of Medieval Dress and Textile Society. Not much info on their site but might be an interesting membership, nonetheless.

[isabelladangelo]

Neat!   There is a lady at Pennsic each year (except last year!) who creates her own dyes using what was available in the 12th-14th centuries in Northern Europe.  I've talked to her a ton of times and she is amazing at what she does.   Here are a picture of her work:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jubileel/3502736500/

She uses both linen and wool threads to dye given that those were what was available in the period.   What she has discovered, and what I have discovered through her work is, if you see it in nature, no matter how odd a color it is, it can be made into a dye.   (One day, as I passed by her, I was wearing a very bright pink dress that some of my friends teased me about.   So, in front of one of the worst offenders, I asked if this shade of pink was period.  Turns out, if you boil saffron with linen, you get that exact shade.   The dress was linen so...I used a safforn dye.  ;-) )

EDIT:  I'm glad someone found the photo above of value.  Please, when you link it to your facebook account, could you warn me ahead of time?   

[Naween]

I took a course on natural dyes through my city's leisure guide...I should track down the book and share pieces of it with you - it was fairly basic, but covered a fair number of dyes and mordants as well, so you'd probably enjoy it.