I have discovered that smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria, previously Rhus cotinus) is the dyestuff known as "young fustic". Conveniently, I have a smoke tree in my yard in need of pruning. I can try dyeing with it!
However: the most a medium-casual Google search is able to tell me is that "young fustic makes yellow dye but fades to auburn in the sun, so when old fustic1 was introduced people stopped using young fustic for yellow". Fine. But what if I want to know more about what yellow or what brown it makes2? I'm starting from a perspective of dyestuff access, not the most desirable way to make a given color.
I have now browsed probably 10-15 different printed books on plant dyeing. Any discussion of "fustic" 1) mentions that old fustic is/was used in preference to young fustic, 2) is about using old fustic.
Where I am at now, research-wise:
- Requested a Massive Tome of historical textile dye information and recipes from interlibrary loan ($180 new or used, bless the library)
- Searching the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg for old (pre-1900) books on textile dyeing
- Looking for archives of natural dyeing Yahoo Groups and Usenet groups
- Trying to find blogs from SCA or reenactment dyers who have experimented with young fustic
- Emailing random heads of SCA fiber/textile guilds to see if they can point me to anything. I hope these email addresses still work!!
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a New World plant (Maclura tinctoria) introduced to European dyebaths well after 'young fustic'. I got nothing.
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there's actually one website showing the yellows of young fustic, but no good information on the brown, or the light/colorfastness of the brown
