#highlynerdy talks textiles
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highlynerdy · 1 month ago
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This scene made me lose my shit laughing.
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"I see you're having trouble carving this very special flower for your friends funeral but don't worry, I embroidered/appliqued this extremely detailed piece of "silk" gauze in like two days instead of the weeks it should have taken, and also had access to a serger to finish the edges off like that. And don't worry this definitely didn't cost the price of a small kingdom with all the gold and silk thread either. Anyway. Here you go."
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There were no designers/costumers/textile artists on set to at least hide. the. overlocked. edges?? None?
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I know this is silly to 95% of you and it's just my textile artist brain being absurd. And I don't expect hand sewing or historical accuracy in cdramas. But damn, y'all could have at least tried to hide how obviously not handmade this was if you were gonna closeup zoom it. 🫠
(ETA: I have said this before, but my education was very much in western textile history and I'm only learning more about eastern textiles on my own the last few years. I do however know the value of silk and the value of textiles/labor was high EVERYWHERE.)
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highlynerdy · 2 years ago
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I decided yesterday that I needed to make a historical (ish) dress for going to the Renaissance Faire for my birthday today. I used a curtain panel I bought at the thrift store a few years ago and it's comprised of all rectangles that were mostly pieced with machine but there is still a considerable amount of handsewing. I've never used sleeve gussets before so they were hand sewn, as is the neck band, and a lot of it was me just trying to figure out how to best assemble it. The hem is being hand sewn on the drive lol. All in all, I probably worked on the dress for about 12 hours total. Which is a lot in one day...
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highlynerdy · 3 years ago
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“You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey’s end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.”
This project was started in March 2021 as a way to practice hand sewing some fine Irish handkerchief linen for Arthur’s neckerchief fanARTifact. But they decided, as creative projects often do, to be their very own thing. And now, an entire year later, I am finally writing up a post about them. Lots more pictures and info about the dyeing/sewing process below if you care to read it.
SO. In the beginning, I bought three yards of this gorgeous Irish linen in a handkerchief weight. I needed something lighter after trying out a much denser weave for Arthur’s scarf. And since I wasn’t about to let any of it go to waste because ohhhh my god so many $$$, and actual handkerchiefs seemed like a solid idea. I batched up a nice rainbow of Earthy dyes (because obviously) and spent an afternoon in the kitchen. The final red one not seen here was dipped in the scarf dyebath so it’s the exact same Pendragon red as the scarf.
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And here they are all dried and and pressed and ready to be squared off. If you’ve never had to cut fine linen into a proper square go ahead and count yourself lucky. It’s an exercise in patience and precision the likes of which I’ve not experienced that often. Here’s a video of me cursing it.
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They dyed so beautifully, though. Dear gods above, just look at that depth! That dimension!! Anywho. I then got to dig through my absolutely ginormous embroidery floss and sewing thread stash. I inherited it from my grandmother after she passed a few years ago and it brings me such joy to still use her supplies in my makes. Perhaps I’ll share a picture of all of it one day.
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Look. At. These. Stitches! TINY! TEENY! At least they were at the time. My stitching has gotten better and better, and this very last project I’m currently working on with this fabric has an even smaller and straighter hem. If you can believe that. I hardly can. Thoughts and prayers for my sore fingers and wrists.
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I had originally planned to write a little ficlet with this, where our Dwarven King had these made for him...but it is still half finished in my Google Docs so. Yeah. We move on. They each have a tiny embroidery in one corner. With this practice, I learned that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to embroider on this linen and changed my course for the scarf. It was such a very, very fine weave that I had hopes it wouldn’t be the worst...but it ended up being the worst. Still. I managed. Below is what I chose for each color and my planning thoughts though.
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Have a glance at just how fine this fabric is and weep.
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And there we have it. My lovely hobbity gentleman will never go without his handkerchief ever again. This project took me almost many, many hours across many, many days/weeks. I think between dyeing, washing, drying, cutting, sewing, embroidering each one took about 4 hours. So. Yeah. Maybe one day I’ll actually use them.
I’d love to hear what you think!
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highlynerdy · 4 years ago
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Okay, who’s ready to read a long ass post about color in history, specifically regarding THE SHIRT, and its scandalous nature?? Inspired by this gorgeous GIFset from @lighthouse-on-the-sea. Thank you for giving me the idea to spend my entire afternoon writing this!
I’m going to be writing this under the idea that we really do not know what time period BBC Merlin is meant to be set. Like no idea. So take all of this with a boulder of salt, okay?
Arthurian legend is commonly thought to have existed in the 5th-6th century, but our beloved show has things that could have it set anywhere from the 6th century to the 14th century. Like, knights didn’t really appear until the 8th century, jousting in the 10th century, and we won’t even talk about the amount of non-religious books on that show. Because there’s just no way. But I’m getting off track here. Alright, so the reasons Merlin’s shirt would have caused a scandal are many.
Let’s start with the first one. Purple, as most people probably know, was considered a royal color. What they might not know is why. Tyrian purple, also called Imperial purple, was literally only available to the richest of the rich. Why? Because it came from teeny, tiny mollusks. Specifically, the mucus of said mollusks. I know, ew, right?? These were found in the Mediterranean and had been used for thousands of years by the Phoenicians and Romans, before falling out of use round about the 14th century. So why was it so expensive?? Well, that’s mainly because it took upwards of about 10,000 of these little mollusks to get just 1 gram of dye. Think about the amount of dyestuffs and labor in that number. I worked as a textile artist, specifically a dyer, for many years, and I can tell you even for a simple shirt it would have taken probably AT LEAST three to four times that amount for color this vibrant. It was also extremely colorfast. This meant it wouldn’t fade very much over time. A quality still prized in dye.
Let’s move onto the next thing because you may think, well, there are other ways to create purple. Of course, you’re correct. You could do a double-dip by first dyeing with madder (red) and then with woad (blue), which were both extremely common dyestuffs in that time period. I actually still use both in my dye studio today. However, his combo would create a more muted, mauve-y purple, instead of a bright, clear purple like Merlin’s shirt. Even so, it’s a possibility. And while it would have indeed been much cheaper, it still would have been something Merlin couldn’t have afforded on his own. Dyeing cloth back then was quite labor intensive AND resource heavy. I can say this with certainty because natural, or traditional, dyeing is STILL those things. There’s a very good reason commercial dyes were invented. In fact, I’m currently working on a long-term fanARTifact, which was dyed in the traditional manner with madder, and I will talk all about that lengthy process when I finally finish it. But for now just know that the lower classes did not get the “first dip” (the brightest and most sought after colors), and would instead get the second or third dip that would have been the more muted shades we think of today for peasant and working classes from the Middle Ages. Hmm, come to think of it, Merlin sure wears A LOT of vibrant colors, doesn’t he...
Point number three is the Sumptuary laws. This is something I learned about while working with @tehfanglyfish on our collab fic, and she kindly allowed me to harass tell her all about this stuff when deciding on the order of the dresses. What the hell are Sumptuary laws, you may ask? Basically, they were meant to “regulate and reinforce social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures, often depending on a person’s social rank.” A way to not only separate the classes but to make it obvious what your standing was. They go all the way back to the Roman era and have existed in different iterations all over the world throughout history. Purple would have definitely been a HELL NO for Merlin’s station.
So! Here’s Merlin. He’s a servant, a high-ranking servant, yes, but still a servant. And he’s wearing this shirt which would, at worst, be worth more than what every servant in that castle would make in their entire lifetime COMBINED, or, at best, still come from someone with far more money than him. It must have been a gift from Arthur, and hand-me-down or not, it’s a shirt that  makes a loud statement that he is in seriously high favor, and possibly a signal that he is Arthur’s favorite. Think of the ramifications. Better yet, think of Uther’s face when this skinny little idiot comes strolling into the hall one night with this shirt on. Like. He would have spat out his wine immediately and probably had a bit of a conniption in front of the entire court. It would not have been a subtle thing. The entire castle would have been all atwitter. Did Merlin know all this?? Ehhh, he is a bit of a doofus from an extremely small village. He’d likely never seen a color like this. Did Arthur tell him what it meant (because Arthur would have known)?? Did the other servants look at him with awe, or with disdain? Did he wear it proudly, knowing exactly what he was doing because he’s a hot shit?? Who’s to say. But no matter how you slice it? SCANDALOUS! If you made it this far, congratulations. You now know way more than you ever wanted to know about historical fashion.
edited to add: part 2 -Guinevere’s purple dresses
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highlynerdy · 3 years ago
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What’s all this then?? Remember the purple shirt post? Yeahhhh. This is 10 yards of gorgeous, freshly laundered linen for a historical fanARTifact project. I’m going to attempt to dye purple with natural dyes, and then draft and completely hand sew a shirt/tunic a la Merlin. Cross your fingers, and maybe say a prayer to whatever deity you can think of that I finish this before the heat death of the universe. 🙏🏻
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highlynerdy · 4 years ago
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Hi! I loved your post about fabric colors and their meaning of Merlin and Gwen wearing purple. I was thinking about it when I saw a gifset of Hunith and the sort of scarf/turban? she wears on her head. I was wondering how difficult was green fabrics to make. Sorry if I'm bothering you with a silly question 😅 Take care!
Not a silly question OR a bother, Anon! In fact, you are the loveliest person for giving me yet another opportunity to talk about color! Also, anyone is free to ask any question about fiber/textile/color history, and I'll do my best to answer it for you.
I'll also try my best to make this not super boring, but maybe prepare yourself for another long ass post.
So! As far as Hunith’s headscarf thingy - it was actually one of the more historically accurate (ish) pieces of women’s clothing seen on Merlin. (I’m looking at you beach waves, chiffon off-the-shoulder dresses, and Guinevere’s damnable ballet flats with no stockings.) Women in that time period (400-1000) did commonly wear hair coverings such as veils or kerchiefs for modesty as dictated by the church. So, while the shape of her head covering maybe isn’t correct, that she’s covering her hair makes my nerdy heart happy. (We’ll just go ahead and ignore those perfect curling iron ringlets for now, shall we?)
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Moving on to green dye, though. Folks often find it surprising that there are very few plant dyes that will outright give you green, especially considering how much green there is in nature. There are SO MANY plants which will give you yellow (like, so many), quite a few for red (some of which were actually bugssss), and very few for blue (only woad that I know of since Indigo wasn't imported until the 17th century). But green actually needed to be created with the double dip situation like I described for purple in the Shirt post.
The three main plant dyestuffs in ancient Europe were woad (blue), weld (yellow) and madder (red) - seen below in that order. How magical are plants to give us so much color???
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Using these plants in combination, and with different mordants and tannins (I'll not go into those too much, but they were things used to get the dyes to "stick" to the cloth or fiber and make it more colorfast), you could achieve quite a wide range of colors. A veritable rainbow! Below are just a few of the gorgeous shades you can achieve (though most of these were not available in medieval Europe) from different concentrations and combinations. Pictures are from Maiwa, who I use for nearly all of my natural dyeing supplies.
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I know this has rambled off into a hundred different directions, sorry. But for green, you would first use weld to dye the broadcloth, linen, or raw fleece a bright yellow, and then you would dip into a woad bath to achieve a nice, clear green, like Hunith’s headscarf. The amount of dyestuffs, and time in each dyebath, would create the different shades.  In conclusion, green wasn't too difficult to achieve. But it was more time, resource, and labor intensive than the primary dyes. And as such, would likely be more expensive. As someone who started their art career in textiles using commercial dyes, I can say for certain that natural/traditional dyeing is a smidge of science and A LOT of magic! I can easily create any shade of the rainbow with my professional dyes. But even with tons of notes, precise temperatures, weights to the damn gram, and a hell of a lot of finger crossing, getting the shade you hope for with plant dyes...it’s a whole other experience. They were so very talented to be able to coax color from the world around them! This is unrelated to anything but it is very, very difficult to find woad to dye with these days. It’s an invasive species and actually banned in the northwestern states - where it grows like a weed - but I live in the Southeastern states where it does not. I want to do a historical dye project with woad but it has been on hold for almost a year while I look for the supplies.
And just as an aside, that color looks so lovely on Hunith. I really wish we had seen more of her character with both Merlin AND Arthur. Ah well, that's why we have fic, I suppose. I hope that wasn't too long, Anon. Thank you for making my Monday brighter with this chance to talk about my love of color. 💚
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highlynerdy · 4 years ago
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@flufflybunnypants
“What temp do you mordant and dye at? I feel like I’ve gotten much less saturated skeins because my heat is too high but I also don’t know how much heat is required to set natural dyes”
I hope you don’t mind me answering here instead of a reply. I just want to make sure I can answer you fully! This may be so much more information than you need, but it might be helpful to have it all here if anyone else wants to know about natural dyeing since I’ve had questions about this kind of stuff before! Also, this is just my personal experience with experimenting with natural dyes over the last few years. I’m far more qualified in professional procion and acid dyes. So.
Temps do indeed matter for scouring, mordanting, AND dyeing. But it’s also important to be using the correct mordant for the type of fiber you’re working with, the right amount of time extract the dye and to dye the fibers, and the appropriate amount of dyestuffs for the color you’re hoping to achieve. And scouring! So important! Even with all these guidelines, natural dyeing is a bit of a magical gamble/just a wish your heart makes to achieve exactly the colors you’re hoping for!
Scouring
I scour with Dawn dish soap (1/2 tsp for every 400g of material) and 180 F for ~1 hour and then let them cool for protein fibers, making sure to gently turn them occasionally.
For cellulose fibers I use soda ash but the same temp of 180 F (5g of soda ash diluted in 1/4 cup of hot water for every 100g of fiber) and gently rotating for 1 hour. I feel like this is a perfect temp and amount of time to achieve a good clean. Rinse them in cool water to remove excess soda ash.
Mordanting
I use aluminum potassium sulfate for protein fibers and aluminum acetate for cellulose fibers. I messed up quite a few dyebaths before I realized this really matters. If you’re dyeing cellulose fibers, you also need a chalk bath, or a wheat bran bath. It’s an extra step, but it helps to remove all the excess mordant before dyeing. And it also affects the final colors a bit depending on which you use. 
Protein fibers - 1/4 cup of water and 14g of aluminum potassium sulfate for every 100g of dry fiber, stirring to dissolve. It’s important to bring your water up to temp slowly after you’ve added your goods so you don’t accidentally shock or felt anything. 185F is what I use. You will want to gently turn your materials and keep it at this temp for about an hour. A thermometer helps, but as long as it’s right under a simmer you’ll be fine. After that, just let everything cool and you’re ready to dye!
Cellulose fibers- You don’t have to heat cellulose fibers, hot tap water is fine. 6g of aluminum acetate to 1/4 cup of hot water per 100g of dry material. Stir it all up and add in the scoured goods, cover your pot, stirring every 10-15 minutes, and then let them sit for 12-24 hours. Then you’ll do the wheat bran/chalk bath and you’re finally ready to dye. (Gods above, it takes forever to get to the actual dyeing part!)
Dyeing
I dye at 185F for about an hour, coming up to temp slowly. The amount of dyestuff I use varies wildly depending on what I’m dyeing. For cellulose fibers (which take much more dye for a comparable shade in protein fibers), I use 2g to 9g per 100g of weight of my goods depending on the shade I’m hoping to achieve, for animals fibers it’s between .5g to 7g. This is just for extracts. If you’re using whole dyestuffs, it’s a bit harder to figure out because the intensity of madder is going to be so much different from onion skins. 10%-100% whole dyestuffs to weight of fiber, depending on what you’re hoping for. I wish I could be more helpful with those, but they’re tricky and have a lot of trial and error and swatches needed.
I’m including two shade cards from The Modern Natural Dyer to show just how different measurements can affect the color you can achieve. A friend gave me this last year, and it’s not only and incredibly beautiful book, I think it would be very helpful for a beginner. But not necessary, as there is a wealth of places to find information online if you know where to look. I recommend checking out Folk Fibers, Maiwa, and Farm and Folk for even more info on natural dyeing and very helpful tips. I learned a lot from all of those sites. I hope this was at least somewhat helpful! Feel free to ask any questions about dyeing and I'll try my best to answer. 💛
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natural dyeing is a bit magical
from top to bottom:
avocado pits
marigolds
onions skins + iron
black tea + marigolds
black tea
marigolds + iron
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highlynerdy · 4 years ago
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a dreamy shot to show the difference in texture between fine linen + rustic linen for those three people here that are textile junkies like me
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highlynerdy · 4 years ago
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Y’all. I cannot believe the reaction the purple shirt post has gotten in the last day. Just. I certainly didn’t expect my overlong color ramblings to appeal to anyone, much less this many of you! But I have to say, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all your tags on the post. Some hilarious and some multiple-kitten levels of adorable. And some just enjoying reading about color (what’s up, my nerds). Some of you talked about Guinevere’s purple garments, and the assumption they were from Morgana and I wanted to talk about it right quick.
@fluffypotatey @lit-beyond-measure @camelotsheart (I hope you don’t mind me tagging you, but please let me know if you’d like me to remove it. I just didn’t want to not give credit for your words!)
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We could do probably do a whole other post on the color and styles of Morgana and Gwen’s wardrobes throughout the seasons. But let’s just explore for now that, yes, the dresses were likely from Morgana, and they were gentle lavender instead of deep purple because-
1. Morgana has the wonderful gift of subtlety and nuance, unlike you, Arthur, my dear. This color still would have caused a stir, you best believe. But a gentle stir. And who in that castle has the bravery to say anything to Morgana?? No one, that’s who.
2. The fabric of the dresses would have also been a pretty big giveaway as to the wealth and social standing of the giver. The first purple dress appears to be a fine linen, often called handkerchief linen now for its delicate texture, high thread count, and beautiful drape. Lower classes wore a much thicker slubby linen. The second purple dress appears to be a raw silk noil. Silk only being worn by nobility at that time because it was maaany $$$. (We will gently skip right over the fact that these dresses are about as historically accurate as Bradley’s ridiculous mid 2000s sunglasses from that one picture of him and the knights.)
3. Morgana knows Gwen would look stunning in any color, but COME ON. Gwen in those lavender dresses would, and DID, do things™️ to many hearts. Knights falling all over themselves when she walks by, other servants with stars in their eyes......sigh.
4. Morgana is completely aware Gwen understands what the dresses mean. It’s not like the slim possibility of Merlin being ignorant of the color significance. I mean, she’s worked in the castle for how long?? Forever? Yeah. No question. And she wore them proudly. Like the goddess she is.
Therein lies my Morgwen dress analysis. Aaandd scene.
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highlynerdy · 4 years ago
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𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘺𝘦𝘥 + 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 + 𝘴𝘦𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 / 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧𝘴s
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highlynerdy · 4 years ago
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𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥...𝘪'𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘺'𝘢𝘭𝘭
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highlynerdy · 1 month ago
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Something I very much do love is this set that they've used two or three times.
These flowy "silk" fabrics look like they were dyed with fresh leaf indigo.
Most people only know indigo dyeing as a deep, dark, rich blue. And you can get a very wide range of hues depending on the strength, kind of vat you build, and how many dips into said dye vat. Like these. credit
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But when you use the fresh indigo leaves and salt, and a lot of patience, you can get these gorgeous sea foam and turquoise colors. credit
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Is what they did? Probably not. But it would have been possible at least. And I think it's cool to dissect these things. You're welcome lol
This scene made me lose my shit laughing.
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"I see you're having trouble carving this very special flower for your friends funeral but don't worry, I embroidered/appliqued this extremely detailed piece of "silk" gauze in like two days instead of the weeks it should have taken, and also had access to a serger to finish the edges off like that. And don't worry this definitely didn't cost the price of a small kingdom with all the silk thread either. Anyway. Here you go."
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There were no designers/costumers/textile artists on set to at least hide. the. overlocked. edges?? None?
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I know this is silly to 95% of you and it's just my textile artist brain being absurd. And I don't expect handsewing or historical accuracy in cdramas. But damn, y'all could have at least tried to hide how obviously not handmade this was if you were gonna closeup zoom it. 🫠
(ETA: I have said this before, but my formal ducation was very much in western textile history and I'm only learning more about eastern textiles on my own the last few years. I do however know the value of silk and the value of textiles/labor was high EVERYWHERE.)
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