Blue Yarn

Barbara Kingsolver's mention of blue yarn sent me off into a bit of a daydream about the color blue. It made me want to buy this book, but that might make me even more of a blowhard when it comes to these matters.

Things That Are Probably Not Related In Any Way But I Thought About Them Anyway

Bluestockings

I read about Elizabeth Montagu and the Bluestocking Society when I was in college, and just starting to knit again. It fascinated me that a fashion choice was a good way to broadcast your political feelings even way back when. Then, the whole blue state - red state thing started up and I eventually found myself taking photographs of a man who actually dyed his hair blue on election day, because he wanted his state to be blue. He was a character.

Blue Collars

The absolute origin of the term "blue collar" might be the ready availability of woad and even Indigo in Europe, which made blue clothing less expensive than other colors and, especially, very dark clothing. Indigo is especially interesting as a fabric or yarn dye because it doesn't require a heavy-metal mordant (although different mordants can change the color), and so is relatively safe to use. It is also extremely colorfast. So, unlike fabrics dyed with something red like pokeweed (although I think this is an American plant, anyway, so it doesn't matter too much in terms of the history of European color choices), which had to be re-dyed just about every year, Indigo-dyed blue tones last and last.

Blue for girls, pink for boys

I've heard that, up until not too long ago, pink was for boys and blue was for girls, because blue was considered a more gentle color and also was associated with the virgin Mary. Unfortunately, the best place I can find online to support that is here...and I don't know how much to trust it. But, I swear, I read it somewhere I trusted before!

Even More Out There

I can't resist mentioning that physics taught me that the sky isn't really blue. It only appears blue to humans because that's the shortest wavelength of light we can see well. If we had different eyes, the sky would appear to be ultraviolet. I wonder what color the sky is to a cat?

And, yes, all of this came up in my brain because I read "massive hank of blue wool". I can't wait to get my Richard Rutt book out of storage, so that I can expound even more.