I am reading a textile history book (The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel) (very good, highly recommended) and about 20 minutes ago I learned that one of the bushes in my front yard, that I have to trim regularly, was an important yellow dyestuff in medieval Europe
so for the past 20 minutes I have been searching the Internet and consulting with @ratbabyonline on how to make my own yellow dye. keep watching this space.
I am definitely going to get a university library involved in this project! even if the internet categorically refuses to give me meaningful results, someone has probably looked into this in the last 100 years. in the mean time, here are some thoughts/potential variables I'm going to look into:
- branch age: is the concentration/effectiveness of the dye greater in new growth? year old growth? several years old?
- harvest time: does time of year sampled affect the strength of the dye?
- wood age/seasoning: is dye strength affected by seasoning the wood? (will collect more samples at any given time and let them age for 0/3/6/9 months)
I will probably spin up some undyed wool to use as the test samples for these.
