Peasant Costume 2

 

This is DH's handkerchief all bundled up with flowers and leaves that I have gathered here on Malta.  It is currently sitting in the steam room in our swept-up hotel room and I'm trying to resist untying it!

Below you can see samples of dyed cotton from the exhibition I visited on Monday.  You will spot some indigo, which was probably first brought to the islands in 1746 and was then used until the First World War.  Most of the dye colours are in the yellowy to brown range, from plants such as pomegranate, daisies, camomile, grass and then onion skins were used for the rusty orange colours.  Fibres were also used in their natural colours of white through to cream.

 

Here is a Gozitan dye pot, isn't it great?  According to the book accompanying the exhibition, "Peasant Costumes - Insights into Rural Life and Society", many villages here had at least one specialist "tintore" or "mghallem" making their living from dyeing thread which was a time consuming process.

My assumption was that the thread being used in Malta and Gozo by the ordinary people would be wool.  In fact it was cotton.  At one time all available land was given over to cotton growing and an area of half an acre of cotton could provide sufficient income for a family.  Cotton was traded between the local people in its various stages and finally exported as yarn into Spain.  In 1800 the annual export of cotton yarn into Spain was valued at half a million pounds sterling.  The country folk of the Maltese Islands used cotton for clothing and household textiles but may also have kept a couple of sheep and used wool for extra warmth and for filling pillows and mattresses.

This fellow is ready to go to market.  His cap, shirt and underpants are historically accurate reproductions but the rest of his outfit is from the 19th century.  He wears a cotton waistcoat "sidrija", cotton trousers "qalziet" and has a cotton pouch "horga" over his shoulder and a cotton sash "terha" around his waist.

Frozen Webs

 These spiders could do with insulating their homes....

Even though we are very cold today and more snow is forecast there are plenty of signs that Spring is on the way...

Today I'm staying indoors and tending DH and the fire.  I've borrowed an idea from Angela and have a bowl of eco-dyeing sitting on top of the woodburner.  It's the last of the poinsettia flowers and leaves, a little remnant of Christmas infused into cloth.  It currently looks like a large fabric bruise but I'll wait and see.

Keep warm (or cool if you're in the Southern Hemisphere) and have a great weekend.

Seaweed Dyeing Revealed

I finally unwrapped my attempt at dyeing cloth with seaweed on Tuesday evening after it had been brewing for a month.  The smell was less than aromatic!  Here is the result:

Rather erratic dyeing but a good brown in places.  No sign of the original pink of the seaweed though (which you can see here).

FNSI Report

This is my progress on my bag.  The top picture is of the flowers for the front of the bag, I have got to make eight of these and managed two during FNSI, they are very fiddly.  The other picture is of what I'd done already, the back of the bag and the flap.  It looks a strange shape as I need to avoid the flap gatting caught up when I do the sides of the bag.
I hope you all had a great FNSI and got lots done.  I spend a couple of hours in the afternoon with Ros, my sewing friend in Norfolk, and we had great fun going through her stash getting together all the things she wants for the "Beach Huts" wall hanging workshop we're doing together tomorrow at Wroxham Barns.  I think we selected enough stuff to make a full size beach hut!  Well, you just never know quite what you're going to need for a workshop.
Today is dry and I've done a little tidying up in the small garden here at our bach in Norfolk and then DH and I went and picked blackberries and now have purple-stained fingers.  That reminds me, when I get home I'll unwrap my seaweed dyeing and see what (if anything) has happened to the cloth.  Have a great weekend, whatever you're doing.

Wonderful Woad

Al and I had a wonderful day with woad on Saturday when we joined Ian and Bernadette Howard for one of their Woad Workshops.  We followed a series of country roads, which were getting narrower and narrower until there was actually grass growing in the middle and ended up at The Woad Centre in deepest Norfolk, the countryside that would have been familiar to Queen Boudicca and her Iceni tribe who are believed to have painted their faces with woad before going into battle.  Ian explained that woad has antiseptic and healing properties and it might have been against potential wounds as well as to frighten the enemy that the indigo blue dye was applied.
After coffee and learning all about the production of woad, which Ian grows in his fields that used to be a standard arable farm, it was time to make the dye bath and for the mess and excitement to begin.  We used silk to make a small hankerchief trial piece, tying the fabric and adding various items to create areas where the indigo dye wouldn't adhere and so the fabric would stay white.

Even though we knew it was going to happen it was still like magic to see the fabric come out of the dye bath looking yellowy green and then develop into a beautiful blue as the oxygen in the air reacted with the dye.
Happy with our small pieces we started work on silk scarves.  This time Al made a very controlled design (not like him at all) and I went for random (so unlike me).  These pieces stayed in the dye bath for a longer time and we had the opportunity to learn more about Ian's woad business developments and his future plans.  I encourage you to take a look at the website, woad-inc, where you can learn more about the history of woad (the last woad mill in Lincolnshire closed in 1932), read all about what they are doing at the Woad Centre, see (and buy) the gorgeous products they create and study the science bit too.
Time to go back to the dye house and see the magic again:

Now I love those earthy shades that appeared in my scarf but according to Ian and Bernadette they shouldn't be there and none of us could work out where they came from.  Nothing I used to tie my cloth could have rusted and I didn't spill my coffee.  Whatever it is it adds to the uniqueness of what I created and I love it.
Our final stop of the day was in the woad showroom.  This is the result of the creative talents of Bernadette.  Do you think I bought anything?