old tartans were "simple and earthy"

[figheadair]

The old dyes used before the Industrial Revolution that were derived from plants, sea shells and minerals (... and fixed with urine!) would have given old weavings a very different look. Synthetic chemical dyes have been around so long now that we take those bright, saturated colours like you see in a Royal Stewart or Buchanan tartan for granted as normal and traditional. They've only been around for a couple of hundred years but we've pretty much forgotten what the colours that are derived from nature even look like, anymore. Also, the wide colour palate available to today's weavers didn't exist back then either and the wild and wonderful combinations available now would have been beyond their wildest imaginings.

In your list of natural sources for dyes you missed out animal. Cochineal and Lac, both Shield Insects, were important sources of red in the 18th century. Urine was used in the extraction of indigotin (blue) dyes, principally Indigo and Woad, it is not a mordant used for fixing dyes.

Yes, artificial dyes can be bright; equally, they can be dull as in the Reproduction range. It is completely incorrect to say that the wide colour palate available to today's weavers didn't exist back then either and the wild and wonderful combinations available now would have been beyond their wildest imaginings. Almost every colour and shade, or ones very similar, were available from traditional natural dyes as this inexhaustive range shows.



There are original examples discussed in these papers An Unnamed late 18thCentury Fancy Plaid and A Joined Plaid dated 1748.

[OC Richard]

I

A wide range, yet all are quite restrained compared to the colours possible today.



I've seen "tartans" done in these very colours, happily I can't find any photos of such at the moment!

[OC Richard]

At least to the mid-fifties left-handed at my school were forced to write with their right hand.

In West Virginia, as a schoolgirl in the beginning of the 20th century my Grandmother was forced to write righthanded.

For whatever reason her son, as a schoolboy in the 1930s, was allowed to write lefthanded, and his children were as well (my siblings). I'm the only right-hander in the family, with both parents and all siblings lefthanded.

I hate to hear about people being forced to switch hands. It happens in piping too, with ignorant teachers, who force their students to play righthanded. The students are told that playing righthanded is the only proper way. Seems that it's mostly an American thing, because in Scotland there have always been lefthanded players:

[Jock Scot]

No, Anne, not even a century ago. At least to the mid-fifties left-handed at my school were forced to write with their right hand.

Otherwise, you are spot on.

Greg.

I had the same problem in the mid to late 1940's in Scotland and most of the 50's in England. At one time there were regular daily beatings with a metal edged ruler for writing left handed, I have the scars on my left hand to prove it. After that mental cruelty was the tactic................. I still write left handed.

[Ninehostages]

In your list of natural sources for dyes you missed out animal. Cochineal and Lac, both Shield Insects, were important sources of red in the 18th century. Urine was used in the extraction of indigotin (blue) dyes, principally Indigo and Woad, it is not a mordant used for fixing dyes.

Yes, artificial dyes can be bright; equally, they can be dull as in the Reproduction range. It is completely incorrect to say that the wide colour palate available to today's weavers didn't exist back then either and the wild and wonderful combinations available now would have been beyond their wildest imaginings. Almost every colour and shade, or ones very similar, were available from traditional natural dyes as this inexhaustive range shows.



There are original examples discussed in these papers An Unnamed late 18thCentury Fancy Plaid and A Joined Plaid dated 1748.

Thanks for the lesson! Since most of the tartans out there seem to date from the Industrial Revolution period (except for a few earlier military ones) I guessed that the big breakthrough was driven by the aniline dyes that appeared in the mid 1800s.

[Pleater]

A wide range, yet all are quite restrained compared to the colours possible today.



I've seen "tartans" done in these very colours, happily I can't find any photos of such at the moment!

That is the colour range available in man made yarns on the market in Portsmouth, Hampshire, in England, when I got my first knitting machine, and began to make tank tops. I could buy the yarn for 50p and sell the garment for a pound 50, but I got so many orders I put up the price the two pounds. Psychedelia was the in thing back then.
When I started to teach machine knitting I realised how very 'handed' people were, some of them having to use their right hand for everything, but those who were left handed in writing often showed 'dexterity' in both hands.
My mother's father was shot in the right arm at Mons in the Great War, and during convalescence was carefully tutored to do things left handed. He must have smiled, as he was by nature left handed - but he was almost caught out as he stuttered from being a child, and when 'allowed' to be left handed again, the problem vanished.
I did a little work with stage costumes, and the use of tea and coffee is common to make garments look right - and in quilting, if a ragbag of fabrics are put together they can be made to look more in sympathy with eachother by toning down the clashing colours. Older colours, if that is the right description, often go together more easily as they do not clash as much.
Colours such as shocking pink and the 'visible' colours used for safety clothing are very clear and not at all greyed - the opposite of camouflage colours.

Anne the Pleater

[figheadair]

Since most of the tartans out there seem to date from the Industrial Revolution period (except for a few earlier military ones) I guessed that the big breakthrough was driven by the aniline dyes that appeared in the mid 1800s.

The first aliline dye was Mauveine, also known as aniline purple and Perkin's mauve, discovered by William Perkin in1856.

Using the Britannica definition 'the term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852–83) to describe Britain’s economic development from 1760 to 1840. Since Toynbee’s time the term has been more broadly applied.' then all tartan during that period would have been naturally dyed. This period said the invention and classification all the traditional military and most of the Highland clan tartans and many of the early Lowland ones too.

[figheadair]

A wide range, yet all are quite restrained compared to the colours possible today.



I've seen "tartans" done in these very colours, happily I can't find any photos of such at the moment!

As have I, but I was not referring to the horrendous modern practice of weaving tartans in a uniform colour range. That was never done with early tartans where colours were balanced to complement each other. Something approaching the majority of these colours can be produced with natural dyes but modern examples are rare and the majority of pieces used as reference points in discussions of natural dyes are 200-300 years old and so are usually, possibly always, subject to a degree of fading and loss of colour integrity.