White Hose

[Downunder Kilt]

I have a pair of cream wool that I just never seem to wear. May I ask how you dyed them with coffee?? DO you have a finished photo you could share??

Thanks.

These are pure wool hose and I believe that all synthetic ones cannot be dyed successfully.

On the left is the natural ecru ones, the middle are those dyed with standard coffee grounds and the ones on the right are dyed with a dark roast blend

I filled a bucket with warm water, not hot enough to shrink wool, mixed in the coffee grounds, wet the socks in warm water, placed them in the bucket and gently stirred until hose were saturated with the colour. For the first hour I gently stirred the hose every 5 - 10 minutes then put the bucket aside for a couple of hours and stirred again. Left the hose in the bucket overnight, got the hose out the next morning, let them drip dry. Then hand washed them in cold water. This seemed to colourfast them and that was over a year ago.

The photo

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Here's the thing (and Downunder Kilt has pretty much nailed it)-- kilt wearing in Scotland really wasn't wide spread (or popular) until all Scots (Highland, Lowland, and the Borders) began to assume the kilt as "the national dress of Scotland". So we are really looking at Highland attire as it was worn by those who set style and fashions. In other words, we are looking at how the middle-class Scots defined their sense of "national dress" in the latter half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The advent of cheap chemical dyes, and inexpensive coloured woolen yarn, meant that hose in colours other than "natural" were widely available at this time.

Something else to consider is that from the earliest times wool was dyed in the Highlands using "free" dyes made from a variety of local plants. So from the beginning of wearing hose with the kilt, coloured yarns -- and thus coloured hose -- would have been widely available. Likewise, early hose would have been cut from the web of the tartan, not knit. By the time that these bag hose had been virtually replaced by knitted hose, the custom of coloured hose was totally ingrained with the Highland folk who wore the kilt.

As others have pointed out, white hose first appear in any numbers in the 1960's. As a lad I can well remember seeing bundles of white, Navy surplus, "sea boot socks" being sold at the Army & Navy Store on Leith Walk, and touted as perfect for wear with the kilt. For less than a tenner one could purchase a surplus kilt, a pair of sea boot socks, and an ex-WD sporran and still have enough left over for the price of a pint!

Of course, the major beneficiaries of the surplus sea boot socks were pipe bands, and in short order bands were seen in surplus white socks. Sadly, especially in North America, most civilians model their dress on pipers as this is usually the only exposure they have to wearing the kilt. And since pipers usually wear white socks...

So, if one wishes to object to white socks worn with the kilt, he can do so on the grounds that they are neither historical nor traditional, and that they owe their existence to canny military surplus dealers in the cash-strapped Scotland of the 1960s.

[Jack Daw]

I dislike off-white hose more than white.

[Bugbear]

Had a thread a short time back asking about cochineal dyes to make sure it was "historically" the same thing. It is from a bug that lives on the prickly pears native to my region over here in the lower Southwest US, but was apparently used for the red-ish colors on wool in Scotland.

Kind of interesting... the connection Scotland has to my culture.

[MacMillans son]

...only to come out of service and find themselves hoeless......[/QUOTE]

And many never even received a "Dear John" letter!

[Dall_Piobaire]

...only to come out of service and find themselves hoeless......

And many never even received a "Dear John" letter! [/QUOTE]

lolol not fair no poking fun at the blind guy....i do my best....but that too

[Bugbear]

And many never even received a "Dear John" letter!

lolol not fair no poking fun at the blind guy....i do my best....but that too[/QUOTE]

Blame it all on the picture captions and subtitles...

[piperdown]

These are pure wool hose and I believe that all synthetic ones cannot be dyed successfully.

On the left is the natural ecru ones, the middle are those dyed with standard coffee grounds and the ones on the right are dyed with a dark roast blend

I filled a bucket with warm water, not hot enough to shrink wool, mixed in the coffee grounds, wet the socks in warm water, placed them in the bucket and gently stirred until hose were saturated with the colour. For the first hour I gently stirred the hose every 5 - 10 minutes then put the bucket aside for a couple of hours and stirred again. Left the hose in the bucket overnight, got the hose out the next morning, let them drip dry. Then hand washed them in cold water. This seemed to colourfast them and that was over a year ago.

The photo

Fantastic idea...thanks!!!

[Nighthawk]

MacMillan of Rathdown- thanks for that information and those points! We do know that the original kilt hose were made from the same tartan as the kilts, but frankly... that's a pain in the butt. So we tend towards natural wool. Personally, I don't even like white when it's the natural color, so the pair that I'm having knit for myself are a lovat green.

[davidlpope]

Well, in the civilian historical reenactment community I travel in, what you've said is also what we think.

But neither of the gents pictured above is wearing anything close to historical highland attire...