I've been doing some 'medieval' things lately. Like dyeing with plants (Tansy - Boerenwormkruid, ground elder - zevenblad and onion peels) with varying success and hand sewing a simple dress from unbleached/undyed linen.

Ground elder was the most disappointing, though I used vinegar as a mordant and perhaps alum would have yielded better results. It sure did for the tansy! My first tansy expeeriment was a failure: just a yellowish sheen over the grey (because natural) linen. It got a bit brighter when confronted with ammonium hydroxide (ammonia) but not much of that brightness was in evidence after drying. The onion peels resulted in a muted brown. If you put that in ammonium hydroxide you get a deep dark green when it is wet, but when it is dry it is hardly noticable.

My second experiment with tansy was much different. I used alum (17 grams) as a mordant (about 80 degrees I think for an hour, au bain marie) and dried tansy flowers for 3 hours (also au bain marie). Then I turned the bright yellow I got into a more orange look by putting the fabrics into water with ammonium hydroxide and let that warm up for about 10 minutes. At this moment it's still all wet so I'll have to wait until the fabric is dry for the final results. This time I used bleached (with bleach and water) linen, a piece of white cotton and the first tansy experiment linen. The last one still looks mostly grey, but the cotton and bleached linen are a brilliant yellow/orange. Yay!

My second try out day at the Bergkamp Sibbe is next week on Sunday (9th of September) and for that I'll be wearing my own hand sewn dress. It was a lot of work, but it was quite soothing work and everytime I finished a part I got a feeling of accomplishment. Even when I'm not accepted as a volunteer for the Sibbe I'll have a nice linen dress which will last me a long time, at least seam-wise.