Hemp vs Cotton

The only problem I have with hemp is its not as soft, doesn't drape as well and doesn't dye as well as cotton. Have you looked at bamboo fabric? Not as strong as cottonor hemp but a nice fabric that also has antimicrobial properties. Makes GREAT socks. Great post, thank-you for posting it!

The "War on Drugs(TM)" needs to die....

I find cotton harder to get lit and keep lit, and it makes me cough so badly i can't tell if i'm getting a buzz or not.

cant beat linen for summer shirts

Also can't be beat for like it's been slept in.

I really hate it when you talk sense.

Excuse me while I check on the weather in Hell. I agree with you.

Linen is tough to dye also. Have you tried silk for hot weather? The best!

SILK? no, I used to have silk long underwear for skiing but they moved around too much .
I have a couple of silk shirts for summer meeting wear but I like my linen. After all, Linen dyes all the nice mute colors and tkes a nvy blue what are you planning to propose we dye the shirts> I like plain (no pattern shirt)
I have one Jimmie Buffet style Shirt(it was a gift) and I rarely wear it

I dye fabric for quilters and tailors. Its a nice business that has repeat customers so after five years I didn't have to work at building up clientele.

I like silk shirts because on a trip I don't have to take so many shirts and I can wash them in a sink and dry them on a hanger from the shower curtain rod. Cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I have about twenty of them in Thai Silk, and they are pressed looking and I've never put an iron to them. Linen needs ironing. My wife doesn't iron and once I asked her if she could darn a pair of my favorite bamboo socks. She said she could do better than that, "damn your socks!", she said.

my wife does space dyeing of her merino blends. must you use mordants for the silks?

Whenever my wife has a big batch of stuff to be dyed, I have to leave because the entire place smells like vinegar

I do it a little different than your wife. Most say no mordant is needed for silk past a cleaning with Synthrapol. I do use a mordant - sodium carbonate. Some say sodium carbonate is bad for silk, I don't think so. I also dye silk with fiber reactive dye instead of acid dyes. Acid dyes move too fast for me and I find I have better control with fiber reactive plus getting a steamer going: it all works against me. I also discharge and over dye. Some of my work is on Flickr under hmorehead.

Ill hhave to get my wife to give me some questions since she's the one that has the color palette in her head.
She used to do lots of natural dyeing until I was getting concerened about the toxicity of the mordants she was being told to use. Alkali nd alkali earths are ok but she was being told to use hex chrome and tin salts.
She uses the reactives and acid dyes when she wants some specific color.
She keeps a huge pickle jar with all samples of colrs rolled into marble sized balls and he lets em all it in the jar and shell occasionally hake the jar up to move the dye marbles. This gives her some ideas of new color combinations for her shawl and drape kits .

Lately though, shes been doing a lot of blends with alpca and silk and those, she leaves mostly natural nd uses the lace pattern define the design.

I only know enough to bullshit a couple of male friends when they get drunk. SO I mostly stay away from the DYeing Dungeon (she has a gas stove in the old milkhouse and shes turned that into a dye workshop. I put in several TOC and smoke monitors

I teach and give programs for quilt clubs. I get asked about "natural dyes" all the time. Dyeing fabric is one thing where the "natural" could seriously hurt you. The process for most are complicated and could go for days. The mordants are now nickle and copper oxides which are still easily mishandled. The dyestuffs are measured by the pound, the colors are a wide range that are highly unpredictable, and a lot of them, particularly green are fugtive and most are extremely light fading.

I don't do protein fibers other than silk, wool in particular doesn't die very bright or clear.

Don't run into dyers very much, and not hardly any non dyers who seem to understand it as well as you. Your wife have any dye photos online?

she will clip stuff from nat dyed sources(mostly Peruvian). all the really bright nat dyes (like the green here) uses a chrome (trivalent) for a mordant so my wife only uses the acid dyes for that (also a really bright blue)

Could one dye with natural things like beet juice, Bobsal?

Sort of. Beet stains more than it dyes, but you can dye with grass, onion skins, some flowers. Its the mordants and other auxiliaries that present dangers. I have a couple of books on it at the shop - I'll get their titles and post the.

Fiber reactive dyes and acid dyes are very safe, safer than a lot of "natural" dyes.

Cotton is the best for summer and you feel most comfortable in it.

Clothes made from cotton are very soft and wearable during summer .