We forget I think, in these days of synthetics, that to the affluent in the US coastal cities, there were many fabric choices. Of course all were natural fabrics. And I say coastal cities since in the farming communities and certainly on the frontier families were dependent upon homespun for their clothing. Homespun that was usually home dyed as well. In Williamsburg these dyes would have been imported: the fustics, indigo (homegrown as well as imported from the Phillippines), and cochineal. But further from the coast, the thrifty housewife would have used many dyes collected from the garden and forest around her, as per previous posts.

Many of the imported fabrics are unfamiliar to us now. A search for definitions does not always turn up anything. Here are some of the fabrics imported into the new USA in the 1790s.

Nankeen – A yellow fabric made from a yellowish cotton. Later on, the cotton was the ordinary white and the fabric was dyed to achieve the yellow color.

Shalloon – A lightweight twill of wool or worsted usually used for the lining of coats e.g. The coats of the British Army.

Ticklenburg – a coarse mixed linen fabric (mixed with tow once assumes), to be sold in the West Indies. I suspect this cloth was destined for slave clothing.

Calimancoes – A variety of worsted.

Sprigged Mecklenburgs – a variety of cotton that looks like dotted swiss.

Calico, of course. Even the name is a corruption of Calicut, the town where this particular type of fabric was purchased. In India, the process for making printed cloth with wooden blocks and dye was developed in the 11th century. By changing the mordants, one dye would produce two colors0, usually red and black. By the 12th century, these printed fabrics were already exports to the Middle East.

In 1783, a process was developed in England for using copper printing. More on that in the next post.

I don’t care for black and never use it when I am dyeing. It is a color that requires care in use. It simply takes over. Overdyeing usually results in a mottled black so using black dye means strictly controlling it.

But of course black was used, in fact it was required. Black was already the color of mourning by Colonial times, even if the rules decreeing social behavior weren’t as strict as they became later on in the Victorian era.

Depending upon the mordants, some of the natural dyes produce charcoal. Staghorn Sumac, for example, which dyes fiber a soft brown, (and does not need to be mordanted since it is full of tannin) will dye charcoal if the fiber is mordanted with iron water.

Black walnut and black walnut do not dye black either, despite the names. Black willow bark (which will not dye cotton – in fact, many natural dyes do not do well on cotton) produces a light brown to a rose tan upon wool when mordanted with alum. Black walnut, which is full of tannin and does not require additional mordanting, produces a rich brown.

So where does one find black? The dye of choice came from logwood, a tree that is native to Mexico and Central America. The British successfully propagated the species to Jamaica and the West Indies as well. Logwood was sold by apothacaries and in general stores, usually as logs since customers feared adulteration. However, a Pennsylvania newspaper advertised in 1798 that chipped logwood ( produced by Philadelphia prison inmantes ) could be had at reasonable rates.

Only the reddish heartwood was used. The chipped wood was dampened and then gathered in a sack and immersed in the dye kettle. After boiling for twenty minutes, the sack was removed and the fabric was submerged into the dyebath. Logwood could be used on silk, wool and yes, cotton, with the hues varying ( as usual) depending upon the mordant. Logwood could be used to dye textiles navy blue and was a much cheaper alternative to indigo, although not as colorfast.

Black was a compund color and other dyes such as fustic were used to produce black. It too was not wonderfully colorfast. However, anyone who has ever worn black jeans and watched them fade can attest to the poor colorfastness of current black synthetic dyes as well.

Logwood was important for dyeing right up to the beginning of World War II.

Both red cabbage and pokeberries produce beautiful red shades. The problem is, as it is so often, colorfastness. Items dyed with pokeberries quickly fade in light. I read in a contemporary book, Harvesting Color, however, that mordanting pokeberries with vinegar makes the dye colorfast. A modern dyer experimented with pokeberries until she found a method that works. I have yet to try this but plan to this fall.

The recipe included in this book is:

Ratio of 25:1 for pokeberries to fabric. Presoak fabric in vinegar. Mash berries until they have all been crushed. Fill pot with enough water to cover the berries and still alow yarn to move freely. Add 1/2 C vinegar for every 1 gal water. The PH has to be 3.5; pretty acid. Heat the dye pot on medium but do not boil, and let steep for about an hour. Strain. Prewet yarn, preferably in an acid bath (1/4 C vinegar in the water bath). Add the prewetted yarns to te dye pot and let them soak about 2 hours or overnight. Hang the yarn without rinsing for at least 20 minutes and up to half a day and then rinse excess color.

Red cabbage is cut up.  If you prefer a more blue color, add salt. Otherwise the color will be pink. Fibers must first be soaked in a tannin bath (acorns!) and then mordanted with alum.

Soak the fiber you will be dyeing in water for an hour or overnight. Fill the dye pot with enough water to cover the fabric and brint the water to a simmer. Put the cut up cabbage into the pot, bring the heat up to a simmer, and simmer for at least 20 minutes or until the cabbage leaves lose their color and become a light pale pink. Strain out the cabbage. Bring the dye back to a simmer and add the presoaked fiber. Simmer for about 1/2 an hour.

The dye is now a purple lavender. If you prefer pink, stir in the vinegar or lemon juice now. Salt will change the dye to dark blue. Soak the fiber until it reaches the desired shade.Rinse and hang to dry.

Natural dye colors tend to be more muted than the synthetics but many are also much less toxic and make use of easily obtainable materials.