Trim Time--Dyeing Wool, Choosing Lace

Thanks to the oracle that is LJ, I settled on an inspiration for my kirtle--a detail of a servant in an altar painting in Bergamo (as usual, click to embiggen)! Is this not fantastic??? Subconsciously, this is exactly what I was aiming towards. My wool (for those who asked, I got it a few years ago from Burnley & Trowbridge--it's supposed to look like walnut dyed wool) But achieving this look requires more wool trim.

I finally completed my work yesterday by 2:30 pm and zoomed off to Needle & Thread (Gettysburg, PA) by way of Discount Fabrics (Thurmont, MD). My first stop was less inspired. I found good deals at Discount Fabrics--just nothing I really wanted. Ok, I'll be honest, I did drool over several of the silks and gawked at the huge leather skins they had--and then moved on. I was under the gun to get to Gettysburg with enough time to shop Needle & Thread.

While Burnley and Trowbridge is my all time favorite supplier, I do enjoy my visits to Needle and Thread. It  is an old fashioned, homey fabric store (complete with a Apocalyptically-inspired clerk that just amused the heck out of me) that caters to quilters and civil war reenactors. My first objective was to get more wool twill tape to match the other twill tape that I'd got out of the stash. The tape I'd had was a rather harsh tone of yellow, so I'd dyed it to get it to a lovely scarlet color. I was pretty sure we had picked up the original wool twill from Wooded Hamlet--a vendor who had left sutlering and sold off her business to Needle and Thread. To my surprise, the scarlet braid they had in stock was close in color--but lacked the muted variation I'd achieved in my hand dyed stuff. So, I bought the desired yardage in same the harsh yellow I'd started with, which was also in stock.   I also got some other miscellaneous tapes, wool cording, a bit of vintage lace and a half yard of some very cute quilting cotton for a doll dress.  I was quite pleased. Here is the stash, minus the tape (angldst --the baggie of buttons is the grab bag I got for you)...



BTW--the wool tape isn't there because I immediately put it to simmer in the dye I had left over from the first bit of tape.

Since I tend to discount shop, I am a fairly frequent re-dyer, especially of the trims and embroidery floss that I pick up on sale. For living history demos, I love natural dyeing, but for day-to-day sewing, I tend towards the convenience of fiber reactive dyes. For this project, I used a combo of Pro-Chemical's Polar Red and a little bottle of Jacquard's Poppy Red silk dye, along with a good dollop of white vinegar. Pro-Chemical sells neat little sample kits, which are perfect to keep on hand for small jobs like trimmings--I keep mixed up concentrate batches in the basement fridge, so I can just do small jobs on whim.

I soaked it in a water, vinegar and dish soap solution, put it in my dye pot to simmer for a couple of hours (no stirring!), then let it cool down and rinsed it. This morning I determined I hadn't left it in long enough (it looked a little too tomato-ish) so I resoaked it, then put it back to simmer.  Here is a photo before I returned it to the pot (this time, I corrected the colors, so that is the correct color for the kirtle).



Please note--my dye pot is hardly optimal. It is a very inexpensive old tin candlewax pot. The metal of the pot may very likely mute the brightness of the colors, but for my purpose, that's fine. Better than that, there's a safety consideration. Because he knows I've used it in the past to melt wax, my dear husband is unlikely to appropriate this pot when he next craves a dish of ramen noodles. Why  men would rather use cheap tin pots over good quality kitchen wear is something I've never understood (is it a chromisone thing?)--but this is always a consideration when I select pots (I hide my good steel dye pot that I use outdoors so he's never tempted).



While writing this, the lace I scored on Ebay when my sewing group visited the other day arrived in the mail. It is lovely--and interesting to compare with the lace I bought yesterday. The ebay lace is stunningly fine chemical lace, probably from the 1920s. The coarser lace I got yesterday may be a little older. It's machine bobbin lace with re-embroidery (apparently, by hand). The embroidery makes it look more like needle lace, so I'm leaning towards using it for my Charles II mistress gown, even though it's less refined. I have another idea for the finer lace...