- Name: Lady Muirgel Bera
- Title: “I Dyed for This”
- Location: Malagentia
- East Kingdom Wiki Link: https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Muirgel_Bera
This project was started in the late summer of 2025 with 9th century England in mind, however it has evolved over the months to branch to Italy in the latter half of the 16th century (specifically, The Republic of Venice in 1548). Woad, weld, and madder were all still being used by the dyers of Venice, but new and exciting imports from the Spanish conquest meant access to a new source of red. Challenged by a friend to knit a pair of stockings similar to the burial stockings of Eleanora di Toledo who passed in 1562, I attempted and failed to dye lace weight silk yarn red. The frustration from this attempt helped with my decision to focus on a dyeing project that would set a baseline of the natural dyes weld, madder (both Rubia tinctorum and Rubia cordifolia), woad, and cochineal all with either iron, tannin (such as oak gall), copper, alum, or no mordant on silk and wool yarns so that my next attempt to dye silk yarn would be a success. I dyed both wool and silk yarn (pictured) using each of the 5 mordants. After completing this, I did an additional acidic and base modifier to both the silk and wool yarns for a total of 150 samples (unfortunately not pictured).
After finishing this project, not only did I have success in dyeing silk a lovely crimson red, but I also solved the mystery of why a hat I dyed with woad, followed by iron and oak galls, and then followed by madder turned purple (although in retrospect, it was not much of a mystery). This project also helped me to plan out three more projects that I am happily anticipating on working on.
Optional Additional Links: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sHSmTXG35obx5oZDkIvuhvcfZ3J_OZTe?usp=sharing (Google Drive with documentation and supporting files).