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The Good, the Bad and the Not So Ugly
First The GOOD News.
Mid-Atlantic Primitive Skills (MAPS) Group T-Shirts are ready for wearing around town and to Primitive Skills events everywhere.
Some MAPS Members have cornered us to get their own MAPS T-Shirts before everyone else, so you might see a few around town.
Very Cool!
The T-Shirt has a newly designed MAPS Group symbol that is printed on high quality 6.1 OZ 100% HEAVYWEIGHT WHITE COTTON Tees that are hand-dyed with good 'ole Maryland black walnut dye that makes it look like tanned buckskin. Some T-Shirts have a mottled look and some like a tie-dye, but all are one of a kind.
Introducing the "Not So Ugly" MAPS T-Shirt
Walnuts have been recognized as one of the oldest tree foods known to man, dating back to about 7000 B.C. Considered food for the gods in the early days of Rome, walnuts were named "Juglans regia" in honor of Jupiter.
Black Walnut Dye
The juice from black walnut husks was used extensively throughout history as a dye, it is colorfast, lightfast and virtually no solvent removes it from skin. Black walnut dye is a backwoods frontiersman favorite dye that produces a beautiful braintan buckskin brown color and various darker shades on cotton.
The Walnut tree produces a substance known as juglone (5-hydroxy-alpha-napthaquinone) which is highly toxic to many other plants and some animals. Awareness of black walnut toxicity dates back at least to Roman times, when Pliny noted a poisoning effect of walnut trees on "all" plants. Juglone is the source of the dark color in walnut hulls. Initially colorless, juglone oxidizes over time to a very dark brown.
Walnuts require no mordants to dye, but unmordanted they produce a tint-quality tan to very light brown depending upon the concentration of the dyebath and the material being dyed. Walnuts will dye gray if mordanted with iron (usually iron fillings or, more times than not, the iron kettle it was prepared in) as was done during the civil war period.
In addition to the juglone, the husk of walnuts, like many plants, contain tannins. Ionic iron combines with tannins to produce iron tannate compounds, which are black, and the basis of gall inks.
How do you get a MAPS T-Shirt?
Donate $30 to MAPS Group and you get one T-Shirt FREE.
These fine MAPS T-Shirts will be first available at MAPS events and, of course, MAPS Meet.
Stay tuned for a donation button to be placed here soon after the MAPS Meet.
Size break down available on these limited edition hand-dyed tees.
- 5 - XXXL, 10 - XXL, 30 - XL, 75 - LRG, 100 - MED, 80 - SM, 30 - YXL, 20 - YLRG
Numbers will not be updated. When they are gone... they are gone.
All donations will help MAPS Group with website development/maintanence costs and organizing MAPS events.
The BAD News
Environmental Warning: A life cycle study of one T-shirt brand shows that the CO2 emissions from a T-shirt is about 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) -- including the growing of the cotton, manufacturing and wholesale distribution. The loss of natural habitat potential from the T-shirt is estimated to be 10.8 square meters (116 square feet).
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