On Sat, 3 Dec 2005, E House wrote: > At least for me, the reason I responded with the info I gave was that, > to me, this question implies that you see dyed linen as useless for > _any_ part of medieval clothing, rather than just for outer layer > stuff. If you remove the fabric from your stash, then you can't use > it for the reasonably-documentable non-outer-layer uses. I hate to > see anyone give up fabric that they could be using!
Don't worry -- it's only the bright/deep colors I'm not inclined to use. I have a variety of blues, pinks, and peaches, all of which I would use for linings. In any case, the dyeing references you gave were nearly all 16th c., when there does seem to be a lot more use of linen as the visible layers, and thus presumably more inclination to dye it, though there's still the question of intensity and hue. The one that wasn't 16th c. was Italian, again a different culture than what I was talking about. All these are of interest in the general study of linen, certainly, but not much use for my own needs in this case. So, back to the assumption of a limited color palette for any dyed linen that was used in medieval garments. The colors you mentioned earlier (sky blue, brown, off-black), the blue lining in the Golden Gown, and the ones in the extant garments Heather points to (salmon, off-black) are consistent with that assumption. Which leaves me with 8-10 yards or so of screaming red linen, the same of forest green, three yards or so of cranberry... The black I will probably keep and try to wash/bleach down into something more greyish, which probably is not something I could buy. The cranberry might make a modern dress, or a suit... --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
