12-15-2013, 11:25 PM
I haven't the time to read this very long thread completely through, so if someone else said this before, please forgive me.
Madder, in fact, can be used to get quite vivid colours. It depends on two main factors (although there are others): (1) what mordant is used and (b) what is the level of acidity of the dye bath (the 'pH'). A mordant based on tin, for example, will give a much brighter colour than one based on aluminium. The tin-mordanted cloth will, in fact, come out more or less scarlet. If your dye bath returned a pink colour there may be several reasons for this. Did you use a mordant at all? How concentrated was the dye-bath? What was the pH? Did you dye at room temperature, or was the dye-bath heated to some degree?
A friend of mine has been experimenting for a number of years to try and determine just what colours might have been possible during what I will loosely describe as 'ancient times' - i.e. using materials and techniques which could reasonably be expected to have been available to the Roman dye colleges. You might be surprised at the range and intensity of some of the colours that have been achieved. Below is an example of the sort of colours that can be achieved. These samples are all wool.
[attachment=8567]Maddershades.jpg[/attachment]
Mike Thomas
Madder, in fact, can be used to get quite vivid colours. It depends on two main factors (although there are others): (1) what mordant is used and (b) what is the level of acidity of the dye bath (the 'pH'). A mordant based on tin, for example, will give a much brighter colour than one based on aluminium. The tin-mordanted cloth will, in fact, come out more or less scarlet. If your dye bath returned a pink colour there may be several reasons for this. Did you use a mordant at all? How concentrated was the dye-bath? What was the pH? Did you dye at room temperature, or was the dye-bath heated to some degree?
A friend of mine has been experimenting for a number of years to try and determine just what colours might have been possible during what I will loosely describe as 'ancient times' - i.e. using materials and techniques which could reasonably be expected to have been available to the Roman dye colleges. You might be surprised at the range and intensity of some of the colours that have been achieved. Below is an example of the sort of colours that can be achieved. These samples are all wool.
[attachment=8567]Maddershades.jpg[/attachment]
Mike Thomas
visne scire quod credam? credo orbes volantes exstare.
