Free blog post!

I have decided to do my free blog post about natural dyes in the textile industry.

Natural dyes are everywhere; derived from mostly parts of plants and some bugs, they are the earliest known dyes of time and are becoming a new hype. They are becoming more popular and a lot more talked about when it comes down to being eco-friendly.  I found this article on a Facebook page called “My Sustainable Fashion” of which I follow and found it to be quite intriguing and really neat. You can find the article here: Natural Dye Article

Photo Credits: Laura Scott 

Easter tulips, could potentially be dye?-Photo of Easter tulips. Taken on April 13th 2012.

I found that this article gives new light on making your own creations and giving our own personal touches on things we own.  The article insinuates that anyone could take a flower or any sort of leaves from their garden and use it as a dye. You can take any plain old shirt and spice it up with a little heating of the plants in water and letting the fabric sit in it for an hour and violà you could have a brand new shirt in no time.  Something that may just be a hobby could become something much more complex.

When people think of natural dyes many think of natural dyes from the Victorian era and think that they only produce bland and pale colours but in all truthiness a lot of natural dyes produce vibrant colours, those who wore the vibrant colours in Victorian era and in eras past were mainly royalty because the process of collecting required very extensive labour.  I remember my textile professor showing my textile class a very ancient piece of fabric from Egypt with deep purple dyed stripes on it( which represented a type of royalty) , but the dye from the purple stripes was tested and found to be probably dyed  from a special plant only known to royalty at the time.  I think it must be fun to dig around in ancient land and find clothing and articles and have them tested to know who wore them in ancient eras.

After reading, some other classmates free blog post I see that one student Julianna Lackowicz chose to write about the Kony 2012 Project. An extensively talked about project that started hitting the media scene beginning of March 2012, and has become widely known now thanks to social media posting mass messages and videos of the hype. I like how even with all it's attention sometimes only people here about these issues through word of mouth or in class which is a great setting for learning news! I think the only sad part of these big hype issues is that once it happens it has it's so called infamous "fifteen minutes of fame" then loses interest fast, though social media can create a pathway for these issues to further discussed, such ass through Twitter's # and maybe even through event pages on FB.