I am not experienced in dating fabric prints, but I can imagine that fabric used in a late 18th century round gown - they sometimes appear on older women in Jane Austen shows, as older women tended to wear the clothing of their youth.
As to black - there's one black fabric you can safely use, and that's black wool used to make nun's habits. They were - may still be - woven from the darkest wool possible, then lightly overdyed in black. Sheep don't come in black - the closest is a very dark brown - but it doesn't take much dye to get it black. Alpacas have a true black, which is gorgeous. Apparently there were special flocks of sheep kept just to make nun's habits!
Black used to be made by overdyeing logwood, but over time it would tend to reveal its true purple self, and it wasn't hugely colourfast. Mineral mud-dyes make a beautiful black that gives a lovely weight to fabric, but the conditions needed for the mud to be viable as dye, and the mordant needed, occur only in very few limited regions of the world and then only under certain conditions. Black dyes often used and still do use a lot of chrome. They are quite disgusting and to be avoided as much as possible. I wish all my sweaters were black baby alpaca however but that is a wardrobe for another lifetime, one where I'm rolling in it and never do any manual work
I am not experienced in dating fabric prints, but I can imagine that fabric used in a late 18th century round gown - they sometimes appear on older women in Jane Austen shows, as older women tended to wear the clothing of their youth.
As to black - there's one black fabric you can safely use, and that's black wool used to make nun's habits. They were - may still be - woven from the darkest wool possible, then lightly overdyed in black. Sheep don't come in black - the closest is a very dark brown - but it doesn't take much dye to get it black. Alpacas have a true black, which is gorgeous. Apparently there were special flocks of sheep kept just to make nun's habits!
Black used to be made by overdyeing logwood, but over time it would tend to reveal its true purple self, and it wasn't hugely colourfast. Mineral mud-dyes make a beautiful black that gives a lovely weight to fabric, but the conditions needed for the mud to be viable as dye, and the mordant needed, occur only in very few limited regions of the world and then only under certain conditions. Black dyes often used and still do use a lot of chrome. They are quite disgusting and to be avoided as much as possible. I wish all my sweaters were black baby alpaca however but that is a wardrobe for another lifetime, one where I'm rolling in it and never do any manual work