flax seed to linen?

In 2017 I grew flax seed. The easiest seed to find was in the bulk section of a local grocery store. I bought a few pounds of both organic brown and yellow varieties. I now know that food varieties will not make the longest fibers nor are they even the right specie. I also planted the seeds in a less than ideal configuration. Sometimes learning is done the hard way. I don't have any printed sources that talk about growing or processing linen and I was reticent to try to find any but those I could find online for free.

A better seed source would be Linum usitatissimum from the linked garden center or another reputable seller and planting should be done in a large garden (rather than strips) so it stands up against itself which may discourage branching.

Read more below for this crazy trial.

Calendula paint

and here it is under different lighting, click Read More please!

Calendula yellow

Calendula officinalis, pot marigold, is a beautiful little flower, sometimes called poor man's saffron.

I know one can make paint out of saffron, like I did here, so why not try Calendula?

 Read more about my Calendula experiment below!

Sambucus spp. Elderberries

You know when you think you know what you're talking about and then 'Eureka!' you decide your assumptions/theories/plans were wrong. Oops!

I keep reading about anthocyanin pigments (Neven 173-4) and how they can be produced by various things including elderberries. All of a sudden I went back to a different book and my mind opened up. Sambucus spp. are not always what we want to grow to make Elderberry wine or pie... 'Dwarf elder', which is what one of the medieval treatises calls for, is a different plant!

Sambucus ebulus
Dwarf Elder, otherwise known as Danewort "is the most active pharmacologically... it's fruit should be considered poisonous. The dark purple berries are certainly violently purgative; in the Middle Ages both these and the roots or root bark were used as such.
...
The Anglo-Saxons and Gauls employed Dwarf Elder berries as a blue dye, and this is now the main use for this herb." (Stuart 258)

So... I guess I want to try to grow S. ebulus too!

Smith and Hawthorne 41

I shall have to mine the references of Encyclopedia of Herbs and Herbalism (Stuart) before I decide that their S. ebulus dye claim is accurate. I've just found another source that uses S. niger for their blue (Wallert 1993). And thus, we're back to common names making research difficult.

lulax means indigo

Looking for another 'vegetable blue' I found this reference. I have seen 'lulax'  few times and see that Mappae Clavicula as translated by Smith and Hawthorne has this note:

or does it...

perhaps it just means a certain color blue?

Smith and Hawthorn 55

'vergaut'? Blue and yellow make green!

The term 'vergaut' was introduced to me by Elena Wyth when she asked a question about mixing indigo and orpiment on Facebook. I hadn't come across it before, so I went to the books!

There seem to be many medieval instructions for mixing orpiment and indigo but few call it vergaut, as far as I can see. Read more below to see what a brief search helped me find.

chalk of eggshells

Book of Secrets