I really find a good range of colors in 17th century samplers and not as much fading as one might suppose. I have done a color study on over 100 samplers and find in those without obvious fading (greens are the most fading colors in my experience) that deep colors remain apparently true and often see dark reds, blues and greens.
I've looked at primarily clothing and accessories, as opposed to decorative needlework and samplers, so I suppose most of the pieces I've looked at were much more exposed to light and air when in use.
Like you, I've seen many deep colors, really lush reds, greens and blues, as well as the whole range of yellow-gold, but I've also seen severe fading in wools and silks, particularly in things like caps and hats. The most stunning example probably was a Tudor-style flat cap of the 16c, which appeared to be mud brown, not a nice color at all. The cap had been heavily fulled, but most of the nap was completely worn away. However, between the crown and the brim, the wool looked brand-new, and was a deep, rich burgundy.
I certainly would agree with you that taste in colors simply changes, from deep, saturated colors, to pastels, depending on styles. However, saturated colors certainly are the norm for the periods of my interest (16 and 17c England and the colonies). I seldom see pastels.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected]
Subject: HNW - Re:colors in older embrod. thread
The colors would reflect the colors in natural dyes availbale to the spinners/dyers of the thread.
Common in Europe prior to synthetic dyes are: woad (in the north)and indigo (south med) -blue (the color we think of as "blue jean " " blue)
madder or ladies bedstraw- orange-red or scarlet
weld- yellow
scotch broom-yellow
weld over dyed with woad- green with a yellow cast
plus a number of other natural muted tones from plant dyeing. I can forward an article on natural dyes in europe to whoever sends an email address to me...
Generally speaking most of these dyes fade overtime in light and washing so the tones seen in surviving needlework can safely assume to be faded colors.
Lili
FIBER NEWS
[email protected]
http://members.aol.com/FiberNews/fibernews.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 02:59:28 -1000
From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel
Subject: HNW - Period Dyes, Class Status, and Web Sites
There are a number of errors in this. FIRST, most of what you are seeing is probably not just "spiffy upper class stuff," but "spiffy LATE PERIOD upper class stuff," because that is (1) the best documented (just go look in any portrait gallery) and (2) takes about a gazillion hours to make and therefore people are willing to do it as a masterwork.
HOWEVER, I have seen some early-period garments and outfits entered, some of which include nifty touches such as extrapolation from grave goods and hand-spun, -woven, and -dyed fabrics and materials. YMMV, and it may also depend upon your Kingdom and local climate. I'm Welsh because almost everybody in my first group was Welsh (we had one Italian), and I'm early period because I have limited interest in sewing and NO interest in corsets.
SECOND, I have heard often over the years that "because we are all at least a Lady or a Lord, we are all aristocrats." Since the widespread use of title is so anti-authentic, and since people are needed to do the chores, I have thought of people below peers as "just plain folks" or at best, middle class. Again, YMMV based upon dedication to authenticity and persona choices. (Not picking on the author above, just that my persona could not and would not be an aristocrat, no matter how many titles I could rack up.)
THIRD, and this is a general comment, there are some web sites that talk about the dyes and colours available, and even how to recreate them. You can start at: http://www.radix.net/~lindo/Textiles_Page.htm which talks about Celtic garb, and it has a link called "Dark Ages Colors" which has photos of yarn dyed as they would/could have done in the Dark and Middle Ages. For the last two days, that particular link has not worked for me, but there is also as part of that page the charts at http://www47.pair.com/lindo/Dyes.htm which offer for each colour family the dyes and mordants which could achieve it, with the names in Gaelic and Latin(? it's not up at the moment). You can also link to other sites that talk about dyes and colouring, as well as other elements of early-period garments. These give you an idea of colours available at various times.
FOURTH, I learned a lot about using natural dyes in the 19th-century reenactment site where I worked before joining the SCA. (Moved, new home had SCA and not 19th Century, I figured it would be close enough. Now going back the other way, living in a place that has both.) Some natural dyes give very dark, rich colours (walnut hulls, anyone?) even after a couple passes through. Others start out pale nad never improve. You can overdye to get other colours or to deepen an effect. True that some of the darker dyes are imported and expensive (indigo, cohineal) but you can experiment and get some very rich effects even with things growing around you. I have some mundane dyeing books that are useful as starting sources and which show colours than range from palest to absolutely crayon-bright, and not necessarily with modern chemicals. While commercially-dyed fabric might have been priced according to the cost of the dye material and the depth of the colour (and does anyone have documentation that would indicate this?), out in the sticks where people were doing their own, you could pretty much come up with whatever colour and depth of colour you liked and the local flora would allow. So, to the person who said that most dyeign was done commercially, maybe in later periods, and maybe near cities, but even in the 19th Century people might be dyeing their own yarns to get the colours they needed. After all, stores had limited supplies in some areas, and my research on commercial yarn production has turned up minimal information (more always welcome!). Fabric may have been dyed, but people still made things of yarn and these needed to be dyed if the person wanted to make more than just sheep-coloured items.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected] (Sabia C Books)
Subject: sca-garb: crochet and lace
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 04:17:49 -1000
According to a book I have--_The Step-by-Step Needlecraft Encyclopedia_ by Judy Brittain, pub. by Crescent Books, ISBN 0-517-14068-3--"the word 'crochet' comes from the French croc emaning a hook. Like all textiles, its origins are difficult to trace and few examples of early crochet remain . . . The more delicate, lace-like form of crochet originated in Italy in the sixteenth century where it was worked by the nuns to make church trimmings and vestments, hence the name for it at that time of nun's lace. It was made in very fine cotton yarn on the finest crochet hooks. The technique spread to Spain and to Ireland where it was also worked by the nuns for the church. It was not until the early nineteenth century that crochet lace became used for garments and for household use."
Also, this book says that "it is formed, like knitting, into a looped fabric from one continuous length of yarn. But whereas knitting uses two or more needles onto which a number of stitches are cast, crochet uses only one hook on which one stitch at a time is worked. There is a different form of crochet, known as Afghan crochet, which is worked in much the same way as knitting - on a long hook onto which a number of loops are cast, then worked off and cast on again for the next row. As it seems more than likely that the origins of knitting and crochet are the same, possibly Afghan crochet was the point of departure between the two. . . . early samples of it have been found across the world in China, Turkey, Africa and Europe as well as in both the United States and South America. It has two very distinctly different appearances: it can be worked using very fine yarns and the finest hooks to form a fine open fabric that is very similar to lace or it can be worked with thicker yarn on larger hooks to make a dense fabric. The denser type of crochet was the more well known of the two. The Chinese used it to make three-dimensional sculptural dolls; the Africans used it for making caps or their chieftains; the Turks also used it for making hats and in Scotland it was used to make both caps and heavy cloaks, worn amongst others by shepherds, hence the name for it in Scotland of shepherd's knitting." This book also places the first known pieces of knitting as dating from the 7th century a.d. from Arabia. Gods only know how long before that knitting went on because it was pretty advanced in the few pieces found in Arabia. Since crochet apparently derived from knitting, although I don't find a date on it, I would guess that even if it is late period, it is still period, even if it's not exactly as we think of crochet today. The book says that delicate needlecrafts including lace knitting were reintroduced in the nineteenth century. There is some very intricate lace made by knitting--and lacy knit stockings in France, Spain and Italy in the mid-1500s are referred to in the book. Other than that, I don't think I can be much help on the subject of lace. I hope I've not bored you to tears with the info about crochet and knitting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dick Eney
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: HNW - SCA was dyes and colors
> My interest in HNW is at this time mainly in the knitting and crochet
> aspects of it as that is what I am able to do and would like to find
> documentation of when each was first started and where.
History: those of you who have read this before can skip the rest. :-)
We're pretty sure knitting started in Egypt. However, an earlier form of work used an eyed needle to sew yarn into the same pattern that the earliest knitting makes - a crossed or twisted stitch, still used in some parts of the world. This has been called various things but is now usually called "Egyptian nalbinding". Coptic socks were made by both methods as the faster, easier method of knitting was invented. However, the earliest absolutely documented knitting is supposedly a half-finished sock found in a Turkish tomb with the needles still in it, thus proving it wasn't nalbinding. This sock is dated to the 12th century, but whether it was 1101 or 1199 is not certain. (And none of my expert references ever gives exactly where that tomb was, who excavated it, etc, either. Anyone know?)
Since knitting needles are usually made of perishable materials - twigs,
bone - they have not survived well. Thus the earliest certain surviving ones were, I believe, copper, and they had hooked ends like the ones still used in that part of the world. (However, a pair of smooth-ended bone needles from several centuries earlier are disputed; some say they are knitting needles, others don't want to agree.)
This leads into the messy question of crochet, which is called 'knitting with one needle' in many countries and is not considered a different technique. (There is also the fact that crocheting is done in two ways
in, e.g., Poland, where one method is called 'making with a hook' and the
other is called 'making with a (single) needle' - both of which are translated 'crocheting'. It could be that 'making with a needle' is nalbinding, but I don't know that.) In several middle-European countries (e.g., Roumania, Hungary), festival socks will routinely have a few rows of single crochet inserted (easily done when you knit with hooked needles) and then go back to knitting, because crochet makes a firmer base for later embroidery.
Since needle-looping or nalbinding is a world-wide technique, independently invented in many patterns in many places, some very complex patterns have been done with it. This is the main reason that anything dubious that is not absolutely proven to be knitted (by finding the needles in it) is now usually labeled Egyptian nalbinding. The only way to tell them apart is by mistakes, or techniques that occur only when shaping heels or toes, or when a partial piece is found.
There are a few holdouts; Annie Potter in her book on crochet firmly insists that a particular item found in an earlier Egyptian tomb is crocheted, and she has reproduced it using crochet. I have to admit I find her theory attractive, because doing it with looping would take an amazing amount of work and with crochet it's incredibly easy. However, I also know that people often do things the hard way. (I just find it hard to believe that somebody invented a way to "crochet" the hardest possible way first and it took 3000 years or more to notice the easier method. But I tend to overestimate the average human IQ.)
However, other researchers have not found anything indisputably crocheted until the 19th century. This doesn't mean it didn't exist, but we have no surviving evidence. We have very little surviving physical evidence of knitting, but documentary records help here - court cases of 'soandso, knitter', orders placed for x many pairs of knitted hose in red, black, and green, etc, and requirements of separately established knitter's guilds.
The spread of knitting through Europe during the Middle Ages was partly
documented by Irene Turnau, but there is a lot of work to be done (and she is elderly and no longer working on knitting, having turned to other aspects of textile history). So we mostly go by the existence of the several 14th century paintings referred to as 'Knitting Madonnas', which show multicolored patterned knitting in the round of various items, one definitely a shirt, another possibly a sleeve or purse. And the surviving artifacts, and the lists: virtually anything you can think of was knitted somewhere, from shoes and socks to hats, and all articles of clothing between.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Linn Skinner"
Subject: Re: HNW - Getting the pattern right
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 21:24:26 -1000
This is Wax Free Dressmaker's Carbon or Transfer Paper. The manufacturer
is: Saral paper Corp., 436-D Cenrral Avenue, Bohemia, NY 11716. It comes
in Graphine, WHite, Blue, Yellow and Red. It does wash out of washable
fabric.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected] (Willow Polson)
Subject: Re: HNW - Seed Bead work
>Does anyone know of and examples or research for seed bead work, not
>necessarily bead weaving, done in the SCA time period (600AD - 1600AD). I
>can't think of any done in EUrope, but my interests are more embroidery
>than beadwork.
I have documentation that I used for a West Kingdom competition (and won
it, too!) that has glass seed beads as early as the 12th century:
- Shire Pubications Lt.d #57, "Beadwork" by Pamela Clabburn - shows German
seed bead work of the late 12th century.
- "Guide to English Embroidery" by Patricia Wardle, published by the V&A
Museum - Shows views of the Butler-Bowden Cope from about 1350 that uses
green seed beads.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected] (Larsdatter, Karen )
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 08:08:58 -1000
Subject: Re: HNW - Seed Bead work
Check out "Lady Grizel's Medieval Beadwork"
(http://www.dnaco.net/~scababe/medievalbead/) ... she has pictures of quite a few period examples of beaded embroidery and bead jewelry and that sort of thing.
She also has information on her SCA-Bead mailing list.
You can find other beady links at
http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/topics/bead.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 05:57:14 -1000
From: Dick Eney
Subject: Re: HNW - knitted evidence, h-needlework V1 #116 On Sun, 6 Sep 1998,
So far, yes. But more exists than is mentioned in most printed sources.
Note: I have rearranged some of Margo's comments for ease of commenting, because I am commenting on details rather than on the sequence of discussion.
> Yes, we have one pair of knitted gloves from 13th Century, but most
> others are from 150 years later onwards. Stockings seem to exist from
> the 10th Century Middle East or mid-15th Century and onwards in Europe.
Possibly earlier in Europe; Turnau says there is evidence of genuinely
knitted stockings much earlier than mid-15th century, especially in Switzerland, where medieval knitted stockings and earlier footless leggings "can be dated between the 7th and 12th centuries."
Knitted gaiters are listed in inventories as early as 1320 in the UK. There is an order in 1387 of several pairs of "chausses de fine escarlete
_faictes a l'augiler_" which is considered to mean that knitting was
replacing cloth leggings.
Striped knitted fragments from Poland in 12th-13th century are described as being local work because they are not "craftsmanlike" in finishing though "the technique was good." Turnau doesn't say what they were fragments of.
Irene Turnau differs from Rutt on the relative antiquity of flat knitting in Europe; Turnau insists that early medieval knitting was flat before it was round. pg 18 she says knitted wool fragments were found in northern Poland and Latvia, and that the ones from Rownina Dolna were dated to the 12th or 13th century. She lists four pairs of knitted woolen gloves from Latvia. On pg 19 she says that 'from the early middle ages are found only flat fragments, e.g., shawls etc.'
The oldest surviving information about the Parisian knitters' guild dates
to 1268, and was later confirmed in 1366, 1380, and 1467.
> I don't know of any contemporary items that look like the sweaters the
> knitting Madonnas are creating (for the ones working on something
> reasonably identifiable). Only later can we point to an excavated cap
> and a painting and say "look! they match!"
I don't know of surviving shirts proven to be from the 14th century; there
is a high probability that what the Madonna is knitting is an undershirt
anyway. The large knitted tunic displayed in a church that is supposed to
be the original 'robe without a seam' is thought to be a medieval fake but
the church won't let it be examined so it is essentially undated. There
apparently is a surviving 16th century knitted undershirt in the Museum of
London. Kathleen Kinder
and had "the most clever shaping across the back and to create the
sleeves". (She has written several book/lets for Batsford, now out of
print, on the subject of early machine knitting.)
> judging the A&S. If the person entered gloves, for example, there will
> not be a lot of pictures of the actual items and I cannot think of any
> in which a person is wearing actual knitted gloves.
My opinion here: given that virtually all of the surviving Bishop's gloves are knitted, and that there is ample written evidence that gloves were knitted (and earlier ones were done in nalbinding which produces a similar fabric), one can assume that any picture of gloves that are not leather or obviously stiff brocade is a picture of knitted gloves. Also sculpture... the Marian altarpiece by Wit Stwoz (which is otherwise not officially considered to represent knitting per se) does have several representations of high church garb, and the gloves shown are so very "drapey" that it's hard to believe they could be representing anything other than the standard knitted silk gloves.
> Stockings are another matter, but you cannot always tell if the fabric
> is knitted, sewn, etc. And some other items might require knowledge of
> finishing methods, such as fulling, before the painted item can be
> recognized as knitting. In some cases, the records available for a
> certain type of item may be written only.
Quite so. Hats for instance may have gone through so much finishing that the original fabric is almost unimportant; in post-1600 records at least
Turnau says that one important part of hat-finishing included varnish.
In my opinion, stockings worn in a late-period painted portrait may be assumed to be knitted, as the production of knitted stockings was a major commercial endeavor and there is ample written documentation of the thousands upon thousands of stockings produced. Anyone with the cash to have a portrait done is likely to have worn knitted stockings. Note: written records indicate that stockings were customarily fulled at least in late period, both as pre-shrinking (which would help the size stay the same) and as a way of amending errors and tension variations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "BaT20"
Subject: Re: HNW - Bead source
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 19:41:49 -1000
For a great bead source...go here and get the catalog...I have ordered from
them several times and they have wonderful beads...they sell retail and
wholesale...large selection...they carry micros, some of which are smaller
than a mill hill petite and also carry antique colors....strung and loose
(in tubes)....prices vary according to what you want, but kilos range from
$38 to 150...my personal favorite are the ceylon eggshell size 14.
http://www.a1server.com/beadluv/
Teresa (no affiliation, just a happy beader)
[email protected]
Visit us at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/4586
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 13:02:51 -1000
From: Carol Thomas
Subject: Re: HNW - Seed Bead work
Beadwork: Shire Album 57 by Pamela Clabburn
ISBN 0-85263-529-x
Written 1980; republished 1994
12th c. Germany: Strings of little beads are couched (it appears to me) to form facial features, halo, background on "panels from stoles, embroidered on parchment" Also some background vines swirling around to flowers.
1630 - 1640 England:
purse with beads stitched onto canvas in a regular pattern. One is acorns
in a diamond pattern, the other acorns between 2 birds, with some geomtric
shapes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 18:58:31 -1000
From: Carolyn Kayta Barrows
Subject: Re: HNW - embroidered book covers
The book "Elizabethan Embroidery", by George Wingfield Digby, 1963 (no
ISBN) has three photos of embroidered book covers, only one of which is a
bible. These are couched gold on velvet. Pages 96-97 of the text mention
several other book bindings not illustrated.
The text mentions "The Mirror, or Glasse of the Synneful Soul", translated
from the French by, and the cover possibly embroidered by, Princess
Elizabeth. It was given by her to Catherine Parr in 1544. It is now in
the Bodelian Library (or was in 1963).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: HNW - embroidered book covers
From: [email protected] (Carl and/or Anne Adamczyk)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 17:21:27 -1000
The cover you are thinking of was a project in the premier issue of Threadneedle Street, a magazine which explored historic needlework. I'm not sure the magazine survived the market for which it was intended. I did the book cover you refer to. It was a prayer book cover made by QE1 for her stepmother Katherine Parr, as a gift. It featured knotwork style goldwork and Katherine Parr's initials in the center of the design. I would be glad to photocopy the article for you, if I can remember what I did with it, as it was back about 2 1/2 years ago that I did the project and significantly longer before that since the article was published.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected] (Betty Pillsbury)
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 02:30:39 -1000
Subject: HNW - embroidered book covers
In "Elizabethan Embroidery" by George Wingfield Digby (Keeper of Textiles, V&A) there are a number of pictures of embroidered book covers. Most are silk and metal work on crimson velvet. THere is one done on green velvet. Text reads: "Paul Hentzner during his travels in the 1590's noted that the books in the Royal Library at Windsor were all bound in crimson velvet." In the "History of English Secular Embroidery" by M. Jourdain, there are several more book covers over which to drool! There is also a picture of the book cover someone mentioned being done by QE1 for Katherine Parr.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 03:41:57 -1000
Subject: Re: HNW - embroidered book covers Content-type: text/plain;
Cloth book covers (embroidered or otherwise) are usually called "chemises." My experience has been that they predate the Elizabethan period by a good long way, in both fancy (ie embroidered, fine fabric) and strictly functional (canvas) forms. There's a brief squib on them in Michelle Brown's _Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts_, and she offers a photo of one which was made for Henry VII (Elizabeth's grandfather). Other books on the history of the medieval book or medieval bindings will offer more detail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 17:53:18 -1000
From: Carolyn Kayta Barrows
Subject: Re: HNW - re:Opus Anglicanum History?
Disclaimer:
Shortly after I got my Laurel in the SCA, I caught someone using my word as doccumentation. That's not scholarship. Looking at historical sources is. I only know what I have found, not if what you want to do is correct for a given period. I just happen to have a visual memory and lots of picture books.
Pearls:
The corronation shoes of Roger II, Norman King of Sicily (no date given in my book) have double rows of pearls sewn on like beads along the edges of the jeweled woven-gold trim down the front, and in double-line patterns on the sides of the shoes. Estimating from the size of the shoes, the pearls are the size of the heads of the glass-headed pins I use for sewing. They are not all round, nor all exactly the same size. (pp.28-29, "Crown Jewels of Europe", by Prince Michael of Greece, ISBN 0-06-015201-X)
The matching corronation mantle has a repeating design of pearls on the front and neck trim, and may have a double row of pearls outlining the aplique designs. Even in this double-page colour photo I can't tell for sure. There are many pictures of this mantle around, but this is the largest colour reproduction I have found. The Italians, Germans, French, Spanish, Russians, and English used little pearls as beads in embroidery in the 1500's. I don't know an earliest date for this useage, but I bet the Byzantines did it.
Beads:
There is a photo of a beaded Spanish cap from the tomb of someone who died in 1211, ill. 319, p. 180, in "20,000Years of Fashion" by Francois Boucher (mine is the expanded edition, ISBN0-8109-1693-2). The black and white photo shows beads in two colours. The text says the beads are "coloured beads". I would guess they were glass.
Little glass beads the size of the ones we use now seem to get really
popular in the 17th century. My pictures of Elizabethan embroidery show no
little glass beads, but I have pictures of Jacobean embroidery which do
show them. They 'read' so late that I don't use them before the late 1700's.