history Archives - Botanical Colors

Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: TATTER Library

This week’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY was with Jordana Munk Martin, Founder of the TATTER Library and it was so personal and beautiful and made our hearts explode. Thank you Jordana. Watch the video HERE. Links you should click to on the TATTER site: –TATTER Journal –Amazing TATTER classes & lectures –The Barbara Walker Knitting Project -Info on Jordana’s grandmother Edith R. Wyle -Info on Carol Westfall whose weaving book collection is at TATTER Shop all our blue here. From the site: “BLUE, The TATTER Textile Library, opened its doors in June of 2017. Serving as both an interactive, ongoing art-installation as … Read more

FEEDBACK FRIDAY: This Week in Natural Dye Questions

This week: Getting madder to be really red on cotton and does madder root go bad?

A Perfect Red: A Story of Cochineal

A Perfect Red is a marvelous story about the history of the “discovery” of cochineal by Europe in the 16th century. The tiny scale insect is one of the most compelling red colors in the natural dye palette and its introduction took Europe by a storm, garnering huge fortunes for Spain and England (who pirated tons of cochineal bounty from Spain). Author Amy Butler Greenfield details the challenges that it took to bring this dyestuff to market from the fall of the Aztec empire to Perkin’s discovery of mauve. Her 300-page book reads like a natural dye bodice-ripping historical romance … Read more