A Lined Coat for Pennsic - to dye for

I think the linen I selected may be a light cotton, but the wool is thick enough to make up for it, and to make it warm.

I spent Saturday tea dying the linen and hanging it out to dry in the back yard.  Then the skies opened up and it hung there all night, possibly losing all the effort I'd put into dying it.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Before dying

After dying

As I said I decided against using the fabric I bought from World of Isabella because I am reluctant to ruin good fabric and went looking in my stash.  I found the fabric on the left, which is an uneven light green (the warp is white, the weft a celery color.)  You cannot see the unevenness in the comparison shot, but it's there.  It's 6 yards of 45" wide cloth.  The fabric on the right is the original planned cloth.

The recipe I found online (here) said 1 quart of water per yard of fabric, and 8 tea bags per quart of fabric, but I upped the water and tea to enough for 8 yards of fabric, in hopes of getting a better color.

tea bags, hanging out

So, 64 bags of tea, and to keep from having to fish out the tea bags after steeping and possibly breaking some I left them attached to the packet they came in, and stapled a loop to hang off a spoon.  I left the tea steeping for about a hour, then took it out and squeezed the liquid out, doused the fabric so it was wet, put it in the dye bath and walked away for about 4 hours.  Well, mostly, came back in from time to time to stir the fabric in the pot.  It did stay in the dye bath for that long.

Because the fabric had a tendency to puff up, I weighted it down with a plate (I picked up the trick keeping orange peel submerged for candying)

The instructions say to rinse it until the water runs clear, then to set the fabric with a diluted vinegar/water mix.  I did that too, then took it out to the back yard and hung it up, draping it over a stick so the fabric wouldn't drag on the ground.

I congratulated myself on having arranged for the fabric to dry out in the open so it would smell better (less like salad dressing, more like sunlight).  Then I heard something rumble, thunder, and looked out the door.  Yup, rain.  All night.

Sunday morning I want out and collected the fabric, decided it had too many flower petals and tree stuff on it to throw directly into the dryer and ran it through a spin and rinse in the washing machine.  Just to be a completist, I added the wool fabric I planned on using for the lining.  It is thick and fluffy, and drying them both left a half inch of fluff on the dryer filter.  It's also a beige/brown color.

The dying turned the fabric from a pale, uneven green to a sort of light khaki, which is an acceptable shade of "will blend with Pennsic Mud" for my tastes.

Final shot is of the "value added" cat shot, with the shell fabric lying over the wool.  I had to chase him off the fabric about three times on Sunday while I was trying to work.  He likes fluffy/warm things.

A Lined Coat for Pennsic - Planning

I have been freezing at Pennsic since I first attended, and over the years, have bought wool fabric while there to act as impromptu cloaks (and even bought the occaisional cloak from merchants) and blankets. I determined that it was time to make or purchase a coat to wear when it gets too cold for comfort.

I originally wanted to make a Viking caftan (directions at Simple Viking Garb for Men and Simple Viking Garb for Women, with some illustrations at this site and this one.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1996
1996.78.1

Didn't get around to it, and got distracted by this at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the attendant article by Nobuko Kajitani ("A Man's Caftan and Leggings from the North Caucasus of the Eighth to Tenth Century: A Conservator's Report": Metropolitan Museum Journal, v. 36 (2001)) at this site. The original is linen lined with fur (I presume flatlined, given the article). It included an exploded view of the caftan, which I was able to expand out to make a mock up. It felt comfy.

Compromises:

The original is:
linen
trimmed with narrow bits of silk brocade
lined in the body and possibly the sleeves with fur.

My copy will be (I hope)
Linen I can get (stash!), though I bought some from World of Isabella and put aside for reasons.
brocade, at least partly silk I can get (again, stash)
fur in the quantities needed I cannot. I compromise here with a wool cloth from my stash, it is soft, quite warm, and I have a quantity of it suitable for making a mid-calf length caftan.


Because this is intended for Pennsic wear, I put aside the fabric from World of Isabella because I wanted to dye the linen to a color that wouldn't show Pennsic Mud Stains that much (tea dying), and fabric from stash probably cost $2-3 a yard, not over $10. I think the wool I intend to use was a similar price, I've had it long enough.