dyes and dyeing

A number of years ago, when Sabine and I ran the very first European Textile Forum, one of the papers was about the dyeing industry at Pompeii. Heather, who gave that paper, got together with Sabine the very next day, and some dyeing took place, and the paper and the dyeing and the ensuing discussions resulted not only in a friendship but also in a number of follow-up archaeological experiments looking into the influence of metal kettle materials on the dyeing outcomes.

The basis for the presentation that Heather gave back then was her PhD thesis about the dyeing industry in Pompeii - and I'm very delighted to say that it has now, finally, been published by Archaeopress. It's called "Investigations into the Dyeing Industry in Pompeii. Experimental Archaeology and Computer Simulation Techniques" and you can get it as an e-publication or the printed version, either directly from the publisher or from the bookseller of your choice.

FEB

De-gumming Results.

behind the (website) scenes dyes and dyeing all the gory details materials silk

So, here we are - de-gumming results:

The procedure I did yesterday resulted in colour loss and definitely loss of some, but not all sericin - the silk still has a rather firm hand and is stiffer than I'd expect it to be if completely de-gummed.

You can see the narrow band of lighter silk on the gummy original silk, and the completely de-gummed and then dyed silk on the left side. Maybe I should take another small sample of the gummy silk and try to get all the gum out by boiling it within an inch of its life? See what happens then?

In other news, I've been busy in the background working on the website re-launch. As usual, it eats up all the time it can and then some, and there's other things to take care of and work on (such as the Egtved Project, for which you're also due an update), too, so it's actually feeling a little like a wonder that I have made as much progress as I have. The learning curve is also rather steep - in the past few days, I've successfully dabbled in CSS, altered php scripts (do not leave an extra . in or you will get a lovely error), edited sql tables by adding columns, written an sql update thingummy to replace values in a column (it's called Abfrage in German and I don't know the English term), and used a regular expression for a search-and-replace routine. I've also cursed the inconsistency of things when an installation went wrong and pondered the pros and cons of starting over or not. (Verdict? I'll try, and if it goes wrong, I'll go with the semi-clean install that seems to work okay for now.) At least I cannot complain about lack of challenges in all kinds of fields!

FEB

Gummy Silk - The Adventure Goes On.

reconstructions textile techniques and tools dyes and dyeing all the gory details

Well, I definitely got your attention with the gummy silk thing yesterday!

First of all, here's a better picture of the two silks side by side:

Now to the answers to all the comments yesterday...

Jessica's comment was:

That's really interesting! And it probably explains the deep colours we see in medieval embroidery. And how they were able to do couching over padding with a relatively thin thread and still being able to force the gold threads into place and keep them there. How does this partly gummed silk compare to modern Chinese flat silk? That's my go-to silk for medieval projects as it produces embroidery with a slight wavey texture as seen in medieval embroidery.

The gummy silk is quite a bit stiffer than the de-gummed one. The flat silk that I know is much more prone to snagging on anything that looks like it might be rough, but I haven't been able to do a proper comparison with similar silks yet. The gummy sample was a bit of the Texel stocking silk, which is a four-ply silk with slightly twisted singles, the de-gummed was flat silk (my embroidery silk). I have flat gummy silk here, but it's much thinner than the embroidery silk. On my list is trying to make a thicker thread from it, similar in size to the embroidery silk, and see how that compares. That will involve some winding first, though, and fortunately-unfortunately I'm a bit too swamped with other things right now to sit down and do that.

My guess would be that the textures the gummy silk will result in will be a bit different from the degummed one, but how much? That would need some investigation...

Beatrix wrote:

I wrote an article a while ago where I came upon twisted medieval silk. This is from my article:
Lisa Monnas and Roberta Orsi Landini wrote on S-twisted silk threads: ´fourteenth-century velvets usually have Z-spun main ends…but from the late 1420s their [i.e. Italian velvets] main warp threads were generally S-twisted. In contrast Ottoman velvets of the late 15th and 16th centuries generally have Z-twisted main warp threads´ (Monnas 2012, 15); ‘the finest silk thread was used for the warp: strong shiny silk organzine, generally made up of 2 S-twisted ends’ (Orsi Landini 2017, 15-16).
Monnas, L. (2012) Renaissance velvets. London: V&A Publishing.
Orsi Landini, R. (2017) The velvets in the collection of the Costume Gallery in Florence / I velluti nella collezione della Galleria del costume di Firenze. Riggisberg and Florence: Edizioni Polistampa.
So even reeled silk seems to have been twisted - at least a bit.

There's definitely silk with twist - sorry if my post sounded like there was only the untwisted version. Organzine, which is a 2-ply from more or less twisted singles, is also still used today as fine silk for weaving. It's much less prone to snagging than untwisted single, and still has a very nice shine to it.

The silk with very little or almost no twist is an exception, usually there's at least a bit of twist in there. Some is already added (or can be added) when reeling it off the cocoons. Usually, that small amount of twist makes no difference whatsoever - unless you're doing something like the Albecunde belt, where there will be an optical difference between the two tablet turn directions. That belt only works as wonderfully well as it does. Embroideries also usually seem to use really flat silk with no appreciable twist, though a little bit of twist there will not have too much of an impact, at least according to my experiences - plus you can always twist the needle to add or remove twist if it does.

Finally, Florence asked:

How does one de-gum silk?

There's several different ways to do it; you can read more about how the process works here (where different methods used in the industry are given).

The classical method is to boil it off with soap, typically Marseille soap, which is based on olive oil. Which is also what I used for the de-gumming test I did today with a bit of the Texel silk.

[caption id="attachment_6739" align="alignnone" width="300"]

During the de-gumming process - it's starting to lose some of the colour to the soap soup.

It's hanging out to dry right now, so proper colour comparison may only come later. I'm just as curious as you are!

FEB

Gummy or Not Gummy...

dyes and dyeing wild speculations all the gory details

Sometimes, some detail in research pops up, and then it keeps haunting you, and occupying you, just a tiny bit. It's not growing into a big project, but it is always there, and occasionally, things touch it and then you try and fit the new thoughts into the current theories.

Well, that was probably a bit cryptic. So. Let me explain. About... silk.

As you probably know, most silk used in the Middle Ages was reeled, not spun - the long filaments from several cocoons wound off said cocoons together to get you a thread of silk. The more cocoons, the thicker your thread.

When the silkworm makes the cocoons, they're for its protection - so they are pretty hard. That's caused by sericin, or silk gum, which is more or less a protein-based glue sticking the filaments together and hardening them into a nice, protective shell. Hot water softens the sericin so the cocoons can be reeled off (it also kills the silkworm). The glue stays on, though, getting you... gummy silk, or raw silk.

This raw silk is stiff and can feel like a stiff nylon thread, very un-like the soft silk that we know today... because modern silk is usually completely de-gummed.

The thing about de-gummed silk? If you don't twist it, it is very fragile and prone to snagging. It's hard to handle altogether (though yes, very soft and shiny). Since talking to a conservator friend years ago who told me that usually, medieval silks have a much firmer structure than modern ones, I've been wondering about the use of gummy or partially gummy silk in history. The more recent research about the Albecund band is making me more and more convinced that gummy silk would be the solution to a few of the issues with weaving such a band.

One of the questions in that regard was - how does dyeing gummy silk work? Will it dye well? And will the dye be fast? (Side question - what happens if you de-gum it after dyeing?)

Well, I've gotten back two skeins that were test- dyed together, as in both mordanted and dyed together.

The gummy silk took on the colour much, much better... isn't that fascinating?

FEB

Shiny, shiny, shiny!

the market stall dyes and dyeing all the gory details

I'm all excited - the first batch of my embroidery silk in new colours arrived today, dyed lovingly and carefully by my friend and colleague Margit from Alte Künste. And she has managed to dye the most gorgeous yellow I've ever seen.

It's like liquid sunshine. It's like textile gold. It's warm and soft and it's yellow, yellow, yellow.

There's a lovely purple as well - and I have not yet wound off the red and the pink from their skeins into something better storeable and handle-able. Winding silk that fine, I have learned, can be a real challenge if you don't know what you are doing. The skeins, even if handled like raw eggs, tend to tangle a bit during the dyeing process. As this thread is flat silk that has been totally de-gummed, it snatches and tangles easily. My first tries at winding off silk from the skein, years ago, were the total catastrophe. I tried to do that with one of the common four-armed skein holders or swifts. Well. I very quickly found out that there's a reason why Japanese silk swifts have more than four arms... so I did upgrade to a swift with more arms, and that does make a huge difference. It's still a fiddly task. (Weirdly, it's also one that I find very hard to stop. Just past this one snag. Just until the next hitch. Just this one more. Just past this knotty tangle. Oh, is it half past three already? Oops. Well, I can do a few minutes more...)

Once all the new skeins are wound, I can portion the silk off on the 10 m rolls for the shop, and take photos, and then you'll be able to buy it.

For today, though, I'll sit next to it for a bit longer and go "my preciousssssss"...

JUN

Purple Dye Production

dyes and dyeing archaeology workshops

If you're interested in learning more about purple mollusc dye but missed the webinar a while ago - the recording of the session is available in the video archive of the American School of Classical Studies, and you can find it here.

There's a lot more things in the archive as well, sorted by category, so if you're into Classical studies, it's probably worth a look and a browse.

In not-so-classical news, I've been very busy sending out distaffs and spindles in preparation for the next online classes, and I'm already looking forward to the next one. If you'd like to join in for the English language one on June 30, there's still a few days left to book: I've set the deadline to June 10 to make sure that the parcel with the kit will definitely arrive in time within Europe. So don't miss it!

MAY

Last Minute Purple Stuff!

textile techniques and tools dyes and dyeing conferences

There's a webinar on tonight about Murex Purple dye in the Bronze Age Aegean, by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The webinar is via Zoom, it's free to attend (you just need to register), and it starts at 6:00 pm German time.

Read more about the webinar, and register here.

In other news: I'm busy as a bee on amphetamines here, and the weather is finally stable enough for me to fire my spindle whorls! Unfortunately, there's already a few dead ones. The salamanders must have been hungry...

More about the firing, and pictures, are to come. Tomorrow, probably.

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