Much to our happiness, embroidery is a very period embellishment for Vikings. What's more, embroidery does not appear to have changed greatly in the last thousand years. Unfortunately, Vikings used wool crewel thread, as cotton floss was unavailable. Since needlework isn't in vogue right now in the textile arts scene, crewel thread is extremely hard to come by except by ordering online.
Happily, two-ply yarn (essentially the exact same thing) is VERY easy to come by, as knitting is experiencing an incredible boom right now. So I went 'a-Viking' in my mothers insane yarn stash, (unless you are an ardent follower of the Yarn-Harlot, in which case she wont' have anything to worry about for quite some time) and came out with a cone of white wool. Yes, if you know where to look, yarn comes on cones. What do you do with white yarn to make a crewel thread? You dye it of course!
Happily, my partner is crime is all prepared with a stash of Procion Dyes. Fabulous! We're in business!
Or...so we thought.
On Saturday, we get all the goods together, travel to our friends' apartment where we will spend the evening, measure out the powder, and let the wool soak during dinner. Unlike other fibers, wool needs to soak in order to open its surface scales to accept dye. After dinner: storm that spawned a few baby tornadoes. So...no dyeing on the patio for us. Sunday morning we get up and mix everything together, and leave our small dye samples to sit in the sun, absorb some heat from the sun. I leave for work, and my partner in crime returns to her home.
When we have...ANOTHER STORM! Complete with tornado sirens, again. And during which the house with the wool in it looses power. So when I stop over that night, we're simmering water on the gas powered grill side burner, and rinsing by candle-light.
Now, we had chosen to do modern dyes not only because we already had them, but because natural dyes are...well...a bitch to work with, and much more dangerous. Ancient chemistry, anyone? There is a reason that dyers guilds never reached the prominence weavers guilds did: your body can only take so many mistakes when mixing hard metals and strange things like powdered snails and beetles. But I suppose the laugh's on us...'modern' dyeing by candlelight...uh-huh...
Happily, the colors turned out beautifully! I'm really exited to start using them. Pictures soon to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment