Tweet

Natania Barron

16 Mar, 25 tweets, 16 min read

1 - It's time for #ThreadTalk. That's right: it's time to dye.

Warning: This feature includes insects🐞, poison☠️, dead bodies 💀, human combustion🔥 & general yuck🤢

And of course colonialism👎. But also gowns! Like this French afternoon dress in yellow & chartreuse from 1866

2 - Most natural fiber fabrics are bit bland at first. Getting them vibrant means the adding of pigment.

Natural wool is often an ivory hue, & it takes a lot of processing to get the right hue. Raw wool pictured below to give you an idea. Carding video:

3 - Red is the color of passion, desire, and… insect secretion. Yes, we get carmine red from carminic acid, a substance we extract from female cochineals. Yum!

Cochineals are scale insects found in the Americas and are often found on prickly pear cactuses.

4 - Cochineals are collected by sweeping them from the plants. It goes back to the Maya and Aztec people, and became Mexico’s main import, 2nd only to silver. It was produced primarily in Oaxaca.

You can see the remarkable reds in this traditional Huipil. Also bug smacking.

5 - Orange. Ochre can range from yellow to brown, but for the sake of ROYGBIV, it's here. Not nearly as gross as bug excretions, it's from clay. Ferric oxide, in this case, gives us that saffron hue.

It's one of the oldest pigments, and the Romans were big fans.

6 - Yellow is for... urine.

Sorry, folks. But we've been using stale urine for ages due to its ammonia, & it works great to help affix dyes to wool fibers. And, like, cure *anything*, according to some.

Anyway. Here's a whiz of a video on the subject.

7 - Green. I've had so many questions about this. So here we go: Green is the THE WORST. Even though you know I love green dresses.

Green dresses were actual poison. And probably killed Napoleon. We can blame Sheele's green for that.

8 - Scheele's green (sorry for the misspelling up there) is a a cupric hydrogen arsenite. As in arsenic. It was used in pigments, incl. paper flowers that *poor children* would make for hats & decoration

Thousands died

It was also used in food & as insecticide. Sorry, carmine.

9 - Blue, Egyptian Blue. With apologies to David Bowie. AKA: cerulean (with apologies to Mulder).

One of the oldest synthetic dyes known to humankind, thanks to the Egyptians. Though the recipe was thought lost, we've determined it's a mix of silica, lime, copper, & an alkali.

10 - Egyptian blue is often used to detect traces of pigment on statues since it has such a remarkable infrared luminescence. It was also found in pots in Egyptian Tombs, and at Pompeii.

But the influence persisted & blue gowns (like this lovely) represented wealth & status.

11 - Purple! Tyrian purple, that is. Named for Tyre, Lebanon, dating from 1200 BCE.

Here's our tie to marine biology! Because it's made from the mucus of predatory sea snails! (I swear, I can't make this shit up, and I'm a fantasy writer)

That's Charlemagne's burial shroud.

12 - Tyrian purple was, like, apparently attributed to being found by Hercules's dog? I don't know. Someone lost the narrative. As seen in this Rubens painting.

But who cares? I mean, purple doesn't even exist. It's not even a scientific color. It's in our heads. Seriously.

13 - Mauve! I have to share mauve. Because Perkin's mauve is 💯. Discovered in 1856, it became quite the sensation when the English royals started wearing it. It was the first mass-produced synthetic dye.

If you want to take a break & have some fun: collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co6783…

14 - Deep breath. Okay. We've got this.

So. Mummy brown. It was a thing.

Step 1: find mummies in Egypt (cat or human).
Step 2: dig up the mummies.
Step 3: grind up the mummies & make into paint
Step 5: profit?

Apparently one mummy could provide 20 yrs worth of pigment.

15 - Now, I don't know how common it was for mummy brown to make it into clothes, but it sure did make it into paintings.

The Pre-Raphaelites were fans! Like Edward Burne-Jones. All that draping material... is... people.

Mummy brown is people.

People also ate mummy stuff. 😲

16 - White isn't a dye. But I'd be remiss not to mention that the crinoline of the 19th century was highly flammable. It would catch fire & FAST. 3,000 women died in Britain in a single year.

Just horrific. That's what. It wasn't until 1910 that we had flameproof fabrics.

17 - How about black dye? Surely that's normal.

Well, it is one of the oldest dyes in the world & charcoal was a good option.

But what was better? BONE CHAR. Okay, tannins worked, too. And like, alder and walnut. BUT HOW GOTH IS BONE CHAR DYE?

@KorwinBriggs

18 - I've really only begun to unspool this thread & don't have room for them all. So check this awesome infographic from @KorwinBriggs--it's got plenty of more wacky pigments.

Cinnabar? Mercury.
White? Lead.
Sepia? Octopus ink.

The list goes on and on.

@levarburton

19 - Some videos. This thread is totally dedicated to @levarburton and #ReadingRainbow -- when I saw this episode as a kid, it made me want to learn all about fabric and how to make it.

It also turned me in to a Renaissance Faire nerd.

20 - A lovely, relaxing piece about making Iron Age dyes. I find this so soothing. Someone who just loves what they do.

21 - And one more truly relaxing, lovely video, about finding lost colors. With Sachio Yoshioka.

22 - HERE BEGINS THE SOURCES.
straw.com/sig/dyehist.ht…
blog.patra.com/2016/09/07/to-…
so-sew-easy.com/history-of-dye…
chestercohistorical.org/dress-1869-1872
racked.com/2017/3/17/1491…
pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.102…
brahmsmount.com/blogs/brahms-m…
thoughtco.com/ancient-pigmen…
en.paperblog.com/the-blood-red-…
vam.ac.uk/articles/tradi…

23 - Additional sources... because me.

pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/cgi-…
smithsonianmag.com/science-nature…
theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/0…
esquiremag.ph/the-good-life/…
chemistryworld.com/features/egypt…
metmuseum.org/about-the-met/…
theconservationcenter.com/articles/tyria…

24 - And one last batch of sources.

helenair.com/lifestyles/pri…
artinsociety.com/the-life-and-d…
fashionologiahistoriana.com/costume-histor…
refashioningrenaissance.eu/exploring-hist…
racked.com/2017/12/19/167…
messynessychic.com/2019/06/20/nig…

25 - I shall leave you with this bubblegum pink dress. Which can't have anything problematic about it. Right?

From the House of Worth, naturally. 1893, France.

Thanks for coming to my #ThreadTalk. Don't eat mummies. Please.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @NataniaBarron

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

9 Mar

1 - Welcome to #ThreadTalk. This week’s subject: #embroidery.

This fabric art—both fine and folk — is a world heritage art, meaning its inception goes back before recorded times.

So tonight, I’m taking you on a tour around the world.

2 - The word "embroider" comes to English by way Frankish and Proto-German & may mean “braid” or “embellishment.”

From simple decorative stitches to complex beaded patterns, embroidery is often a matter of national pride and identity, too, like this Croatian blouse.

3 - The width and breadth of the embroidery on Earth is striking in variety & beauty. It transcends class, status, and rank & has been used both as symbols of the oppressed and the oppressor.

This hand-stitched Mandarin rank badge is from the Qing Dynasty in China.

Read 30 tweets

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

8 Mar

Pertinent to discussions about neurodivergent writers: WORKING MEMORY.

This means we get very tripped up with complex forms, multiple-step processes, and guidelines.

So, we make mistakes, even if we don't mean to & we can immediately forget directions, numbers, etc

I used to think there was something wrong with me because I couldn't remember phone numbers.

I still can't. I took an ADHD screener a few months ago and my working memory is SHOT.

Pair that with our trouble understanding time, and if we don't do it NOW it often doesn't happen.

Someone once said that when you have ADHD, there are two different states of time: NOW and NOT NOW.

You could imagine how hard that is to manage with agent queries, book submissions, contracts, payments, etc.

Read 4 tweets

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

2 Mar

1 - Welcome to tonight's #Treadtalk.

#Velvet may bring to mind 1970s couches, or your 90s goth stage, but that's a long way from its luxurious roots.

So let's brave the Black Plague, the cold, and questionable fashion choices together, in the name of this truly royal fabric.

2 - As with many fabrics, there is debate as to where velvet began. Some say China, others say Egypt & others point to the Middle East.

What they can agree on is that it’s a pain in the ass to make and $$$$$ AF. Original velvet was silk, too.

3 - Velvet is a pile fabric, which means it relies on lots of sharp objects & a touch of violence for production.

Yup! Velvet’s pile yarn is on the warp direction & must be cut on the loom or, in face-to-face methods--slicing down the middle to create two mirror-like textiles.

Read 30 tweets

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

27 Feb

I think my next writing piece is all about shame.

Which is something we don't talk much about, but boy howdy do we exploit.

There's internal shame, but there's also what I think of as "shame-baiting"--content that's designed specifically to invoke shame in other creatives.

Critique, advice, support, these are all connected. But they can be flavored with shame.

Shame, as an emotion, is incredibly potent. And many people turn their own internalized shame outward.

For some people it works. At least temporarily. But I don't think it's sustainable.

I've been a lifelong marketer my whole career, and click bait has warped our senses.

We're totally okay with emotional manipulation, playing to people's fears and darkest shame.

It's a dangerous game. It's damaging. It's ultimately very, very shitty.

Read 5 tweets

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

23 Feb

1 - Lace yourself, darlings. It’s about to get drafty in here. Welcome to my #ThreadTalk.

What began on the collars of Catholic clergy & adorned the pages of Frederick’s of Hollywood centuries later?

That’s right. Lace.

And #ThreadTalks go, lace is relatively modern.

2 - The word itself comes from a Vulgar Latin derivation, from the word “laceum" (a noose or a snare). And lace has ensnared many since it came upon the scene in the late 15th C.

Flemish lace, in particular, was prized for its purity, softness, & quality of the linen grown.

3 - Lace is not a fabric, per se, but what’s called a “decorate openwork web”. In this way it’s more related to crochet and knitting & arguably has its roots in net-making.

Many of these webs can be combined in a variety of designs, densities & motifs to create layers.

Read 25 tweets

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

16 Feb

1 - Damask-erade, grinning yellows spinning reds,
Damask-erade! take your fill, let the spectacle astound you

Welcome to tonight's #ThreadTalk: Damask.

This fabric goes beyond musicals, creepy Victorian wallpaper & antique furniture. Let's follow the thread across the globe.

2 - Damask is a reversible figured fabric. It's also flat, yet has complex designs: this makes it versatile & ideal for catching light.

It isn't, as the name suggests (via the French), from Damascus at all: it's from China and was originally made solely of silk.

3 - Damask rose to popularity during the Sui and Tang dynasties alongside the major explosion in silk fabric making (particularly for the ruling and aristocratic classes).

Advances in loom technology are to account the appearance of damask in the first place.