Pearls and Handwoven clothing.

[Red]

Here is the entire garment.

OldShirt.jpg

[ericw]

I didn't well understand the description ( I believed it was a shamanic cloth... my poor english).
This piece is far from stone Age, even it would be fashionable today!
It's a great mystery, as far as we consider the Story, how humans can make so much worst things than marvellous ones as this.
Thank you for sharing, Red.

[BWeaves]

I'd wear it today.

[ericw]

I'd wear it today.

BWeaves, with one of your pearls' necklaces, you will be perfect!

[CathyKeshi]

A weaving goal for you, BWeaves

[BWeaves]

Haha! The trick with this particular garment is not the spinning and weaving, but the dyeing and block printing. That's something I don't do, sigh. But yes, Cathy. GOALS!!!

[kojimapearl]

Wow.. I would love to see that in person! I'm dreaming of the color and shimmer! Thanks for sharing this!

[CathyKeshi]

I can't even imagine the workmanship and craft artistry that went into creating that garment BWeaves. But having seen your night sky shawl ... wouldn't put it out of your talent range to create something inspired by this

[ericw]

Haha! The trick with this particular garment is not the spinning and weaving, but the dyeing and block printing. That's something I don't do, sigh. But yes, Cathy. GOALS!!!

Sure, that's an important point, BWeaves, this question to know how to block printing. Many traditional clothes have this probleme, and moreover in ancient times, good etching recipts were scarce and hidden like magic's secrets. That's also why this shirt is so wonderful.

[BWeaves]

Dyeing, printing and painting are such a challenge. Different dyes require different mordants to "stick" to the fiber. Some colors bleed or run. Some are not light fast and fade. Some are not wash fast and fade. Some colors oxidize and change color, like the icons with green skin. Their skin was pink when they were painted. Some dyes cannot be put next to each other because they will have a chemical reaction and eat through the fabric. In some old paintings, they had to paint one color, put on a layer of varnish and then paint the second color, so the two colors were not next to each other. You can't varnish clothing, so the colors were even more limited.

Nowadays, all dyes and paints come premixed and you can mix them together no problem. Back in the day, you had to grind your own pigments, or import them from who knows where. Some colors were impossible to get, like green. You couldn't just mix yellow and blue, because they were incompatible chemically.

So when something like Scheel Green was invented, people went mad for it. Dresses, wallpaper, silk flowers, were all made with it. Unfortunately, it was also full of arsenic and people died from touching the silk flowers, wearing the dresses, dancing in the rooms with the wallpaper. The government of Great Britain knew about the toxicity of Scheel Green but never banned it. So what if a few people died. It's pretty.

You'll notice this 1000 year old shirt is gold (onion skins or marigold or tumeric or saffron) and blue (indigo or woad). Both colors that are very light fast and wash fast. You will notice they did not mix the two colors to get green. Gold is an immersion dye, but indigo is a vat dye. Two different dyeing methods that cannot be done at the same time. I'm in awe.

Immersion dyes, you put the wet dye on the fabric and the fabric is stained yellow.
Vat dyes, you put the wet dye on the fabric and it's yellow, and when oxygen hits it, it turns blue. It also requires ammonia in the form of stale urine to dissolve the indigo. Smelly work.

[Lady_Disdain]

Thank you, BWeaves, that was wonderful. So many beautiful techniques.

It looks like a 4 colour print, no? Light blue, dark blue, brown for the outline and dark gold.

[BWeaves]

Yes, 4 colors. So they needed 4 printing blocks. One for each color. Then they had to align them correctly both when layering the colors, and when moving to the next section of cloth to print. Nowadays, they run yards of cloth through rollers to continuously print the fabric. Back then, the fabric would have to be laid out flat and block printed and then left to dry flat, between printing.

[Lady_Disdain]

Just the idea of carving 4 blocks with the intricate details that align so beautifully is mind boggling. Then, of course, actually aligning them so perfectly.

This shows the Japanese block printing process: https://youtu.be/gyFrp5Xiees?t=319 This shows block printing on paper but it is still fascinating. If the lines can be as thin as 0.1mm thick, that means that the alignment between the blocks has to be more precise than that!

[pattye]

What a great discussion! Thank you so much for the details, BWeaves! All wonderful!

[amti]

That is truly a work of art! So intricate! If only it would tell us of its stories!