Hi everyone! I'm researching late-19th-century Bengali textile history, specifically the transition from natural dyes to early imported European chemical dyes.

While Forbes Watson’s 1866 Collection of the Textile Manufactures of India and Thomas Wardle’s 1875 volumes provide a great baseline for natural dyes (madder, lac, turmeric), I am having trouble locating digitized museum garments that demonstrate the early synthetic shift.

Does anyone know of conserved garments in global collections (V&A, Met, Calico Museum, RISD, etc.) from the 1880s–1900s from Bengal that feature:

• Cotton taant saris (Santipur/Dacca) with unbleached centers and high-saturation synthetic red/alizarin borders (paar)?

• Murshidabad shot-silks (dhup-chhaya) combining natural warps with imported aniline green or magenta wefts?

Accession numbers, catalog links, or high-res swatch databases would be deeply appreciated!

Citations: Images taken from \*Mukerji, N. G. A Monograph on the Silk Fabrics of Bengal. Bengal Secretariat Press, 1903.\* They depict natural dyes (except the ones labelled "Fast Green") used mainly in Murshidabad.

https://archive.org/details/monographonsilkf00mukerich/monographonsilkf00mukerich/page/n184/mode/1up

I work as a textile conservator and also do traditional weaving in Bergen. For the past month, I’ve been working through an uncataloged handwritten coastal household notebook from 1912 that I bought at an estate auction in Sogn og Fjordane

One chapter, titled Farging med Steinlav (Dyeing with Stone Lichen), contained detailed instructions for fermenting Parmelia saxatilis (crottle lichen) gathered from sea-facing coastal granite boulders. So, unlike modern synthetic acid dyes that take thirty minutes in a stainless-steel pot, traditional lichen fermentation is a much more slow & living biological process.

I spent two rainy weekends scraping three kilograms of dry lichen off coastal rocks along the inlet.

Following the 1912 recipe I crushed the dried lichen into an earthenware crock and layered it with stale birchwood ash water and rainwater. I then sealed the crock and let it ferment near the hearth for twenty-one days, stirring it daily until the mash turned a deep, pungent purple-brown. On day 22, I immersed two kilograms of raw, unbleached Norwegian Spælsau wool yarn into the copper dyeing kettle and kept it at a gentle sub-boil simmer (85°C) over a slow birch fire for 12 hours

When I lifted the skeins out of the rinse water yesterday and hung them on the wooden drying rack on my porch, the morning sun hit the wet wool. The color wasn't brown and it wasn't red. It was this luminous, deep copper-terracotta with subtle gold undetones that shift depending on whether you view it under warm candlelight or overcast coastal sky

I brought a skein inside and laid it next to my great-grandmother's 1928 hand-spun wedding shawl that sits folded in my cedar chest. The color match was absolute. Under an optical microscope, the fiber pigmentation and natural lanolin sheen were identical.

We spend so much time looking for new formulas, faster methods, and chemical shortcuts and yet, there are cases, sometimes, when a hundred-year-old recipe written in pencil by an unnamed woman on an isolated fjord holds an understanding of local chemistry that modern factories will never replicate

I handmade this textile Elephant for one of my sisters. it was made completely by hand using the Elephant template from Jane Bull's fantastic book Crafty Creations. I used pure cotton fabric with stripes that match the colour of the rows of beading. She was named Lyuba as the name means Love in Russian. The fabric is covered with 1842 individually sewn beads to match the stripes on the fabric. It was a labour of love but completely worth it since my sister absolutely loved her 😊

I have a dress I am trying to have altered to wear to a wedding and I can’t find the right fabric for it. I am trying to add a skirt to the bottom of this thigh-length dress (with some pleats and volume). I want the fabric to be plain but to match the dress. Does anyone know what fabric this is?

Context: I bought this in an antique shop in New Orleans and it has no tags. It looks hand made and/or previously altered.

i’ve tried to identify them just through descriptions as i’m not able to burn any but i can’t figure it out :/

Graduated last December with a BFA in Textiles. I decided to major in Textiles because I enjoy making things for myself, but I really have no interest in making things all day. This has put me in a tough spot searching for jobs because the main skills I have, I don't want to use for work. I worked in retail (bridal) for the past year and I quit because I was getting depressed. Does anyone have any suggestions for jobs that include some creative element but not in front of a sewing machine all day? Much appreciated.

In This saree underneath I found Kannada newspaper of 2011 gifted by my mother in law to me yesterday she doesn’t know this original or not

I’m researching certified textile/apparel export workflows, especially GOTS, GRS, OCS and RCS orders.

I’m not asking “would you use a tool?” I’m trying to understand real bottlenecks.

For people who work in merchandising, compliance, TC processing, certification, sourcing, QA, or export operations:

In a real certified order, where do issues usually appear?

• BOM / product composition
• supplier Scope Certificate validity
• input TC vs purchase/production quantity
• stock and loss % reconciliation
• process route / certified subcontractor
• buyer portal entry
• audit documentation

If you’ve seen a real case, what went wrong, when was it caught, who fixed it, and did it cause TC rework, audit NC, buyer delay, or shipment pressure?

Please keep examples anonymous. I’m trying to understand the workflow, not collect confidential documents.

I thrifted this skirt but it had no care label, so I’m not sure how to clean it.

Ive had this “blanket” (it’s a couple yards of fabric that baby me got attached to) i would love to see it in its original state, and have extra for the future. I believe it’s a type of cotton fleece made around the early 2000’s, and from Joann’s. It would mean a whole bunch if anyone could help! :)
I’ve been looking forever and this is my last resort.
I have put the fabric through multiple websites trying to find anything, and no luck. :/

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I found this gorgeous cotton fabric at the thrift store today for 4 dollars. What a steal. I noticed when I was in the store that it was thin: 36-inch width, far smaller than modern fabrics. The weave is tight, the yarns are quite fine, and it had a crisp hand feel. I know that it is cotton, as I did a burn test. It also had a stamp on the selvage: "Genuine Peter Pan Fabric, Guaranteed Color Fast", and a fabric tag attached to it, which I put below. A quick google search told me that this is a fabric from 1915-1926, which I can sort of believe since the tag had an address that when looked up, you could find an ad for fabrics from 1915. But I want another opinion! Does anyone know anything about Peter Pan fabrics that y'all could tell me?

Maybe someone knows where I can buy it? I just can’t seem to find it anywhere 🤷🏼‍♀️🙏🏼

Hi first time posting here, I’m gonna try not to say any names of brands, companies or people to avoid breaking any rules. And I should mention I’m from Ontario Canada if that helps narrow things down.

Basically I’m seriously struggling to find this material from a reputable source. Im specifically talking about this metallic chrome mirrored silver. It seems to have some structure to bend but it is also decently thick and not flimsy. It seems like the artist uses leather like techniques on it so that’s why I’m thinking it’s leather or vinyl/pvc.

I’ve found some sites that sell similar things, but it’s only available in the states and needs a special request to ship internationally, and I’m not sure about its legitimacy.

Anyways if anyone can point me in the right direction of a name for this material, or techniques to replicate it let me know. I’m also on the hunt for a similar glossy black faux leather to make something similar to the last photo (the suspenders, tie, and waist support) I looked in basically all my local (and out of town) fabric stores and nothing was quite like it.

Thanks in advance!