Ethel Mairet

“ The dye house should be by a river or stream, so that the dyer can wash with a continuous supply. Spring and well water is as a rule hard, and should be avoided. In washing, as well as in dyeing, hard water is altogether injurious for wool. It ruins the brilliancy of colour, and prevents the dyeing of some colours. Temporary hardness can be overcome by boiling the water (20 to 30 minutes) before using. An old method of purifying water, which is still used by some silk and wool scourers, is to boil the water with a little soap, skimming off the surface as it boils. ”

“ Some of the chemical colours as well as the natural, are not fast to light and washing, and ought never to be used; but there are natural colours, such as madder, some of the lichens, catechu etc., which are as fast as any chemical dye, if not more so. BUT there is this general difference between the results of the two methods,—that when a chemical colour fades it becomes a different colour and generally a bad one: when a natural colour fades, it becomes a lighter tone of the same colour. ”

“ Is there a blue in the world as fine as the blue in a Bokhara rug, or a red to touch the red of a Persian brocade or Indian silk?—the new fresh colours as they come out of the dyer's vat, not as they are after years of wear and tear, though that is beautiful enough. And yet they are not more beautiful than the colours once made by dyers in England. They are as brilliant as the chemical colours, but they are not hard and unsympathetic 5 and correct. They are alive and varied, holding the light as no chemical colour can hold it ”

“ Black is best made by dyeing dark blue wool with brown; and walnut is better than iron for the brown part, because the iron-brown is apt to rot the fibre; as you will see in some pieces of old tapestry, or old Persian carpets, where the black is quite perished, or at least in the case of the carpet—gone down to the knots. All intermediate shades of flesh colour can be got by means of weak baths of madder and walnut "saddening;" madder or cochineal mixed with weld gives us orange, and with saddening (walnut) all imaginable shades between yellow and red, including the ambers, maize-colour, etc." ”

“ Dealing with exactly known quantities, and striving for precise uniformity, the chemist has no use for the accidents and irregularities which the artist's imagination seizes and which the traditional worker well knew how to use. ”

“ In this 20th century the importance of colour in our lives seems to be realized less and less. It has been forgotten that strong and beautiful colour, such as used to abound in all every day things, is an essential to the full joy of life. A sort of fear or nervousness of bright colour is one of the features of our age, it is especially evident in the things we wear. ”

“ Waste silk is the silk from cocoons that are damaged 17 in some way so that they cannot be reeled off direct. They are therefore carded and spun, like wool or cotton.
Silk in the raw state is covered with a silk gum which must be boiled off before dyeing is begun. It is tied up in canvas bags and boiled up in a strong solution of soap for three or four hours until all the gum is boiled off. If it is yellow gum, the silk is wrought first in a solution of soft soap at a temperature just below boiling point for about an hour, then put into bags and boiled. ”

“ Cotton has a natural attraction for tannic acid, so that when once steeped in its solution it is not easily removed by washing.
ALUM. (Aluminium sulphate.) —This is the most 27 generally used of all the mordants, and has been known as such from early times in many parts of the world. For most colours a certain proportion of cream of tartar should be added to the alum bath as it helps to brighten the ultimate colour. The usual amount of alum used is a quarter of a pound to every pound of wool. As a rule, less mordant is needed for light colours than for dark. ”

“ We fear bright colour because our modern colours are bad, and they are bad because the tradition of dyeing has been broken. The chemist has invaded the domain of the dyer, driven him out and taken over his business, with the result that ugly colour has become the rule for the first time in the history of mankind. It is not that chemists never produce 2 beautiful colour. ”

“ For a good bright green, dye the wool a rather light blue, then wash and dry; green it with a good yellow dye, such as weld or fustic, varying the proportion of each according to the shade of green required. Heather tips, dyer's broom, dock roots, poplar leaves, saw wort are also good yellows for dyeing green. If Indigo Extract is used for the blue, fustic is the best yellow for greening, its colour is less affected by the sulphuric acid than other yellows. ”

“ Every piece of craft work should be an adventure. It cannot be an adventure if commerce steps in and says "I will dye all your yarn for you; you will always then be able to match your colour again; there need be no variation; every skein shall be as all the others; you can order so many pounds of such a number and you can get it by return of post; and you can have six or seven hundred shades to choose from." It is all so easy, so temptingly easy,—but 7 how DULL! the deadly yards of stuff all so even and so exactly dyed ”

“ Sufficient time must be allowed for the mordant to penetrate the fibre thoroughly. If the mordant is only superficial, the dye will be uneven: it will fade and will not be as brilliant as it should be. The brilliancy and fastness of Eastern dyes are probably due to a great extent to the length of time taken over the various processes of dyeing. The longer time that can be given to each process, the more satisfactory will be the result.
Different mordants give different colours with the same dye stuff. For example:—Cochineal, if 35 mordanted with alum, will give a crimson colour ”

“ The chalk does not merely answer the purpose of decomposing the acid left in the wool by the sulphate of indigo, but it helps to raise the colour and to render it more durable."
According to Bancroft, Quercitron is the yellow above all others for dyeing greens. He says:—
"The most beautiful Saxon greens may be produced very cheaply and expeditiously by combining the lively yellow which results from Quercitron bark, murio sulphate of tin and alum, with the blue afforded by indigo when dissolved in sulphuric acid, as for dyeing the Saxon blue". ”

“ The grey Lichen Ramalina scopulorum, dyes a fine shade of yellow brown. It grows very plentifully on old stone walls, especially by the sea, and in damp woods, on trees, and on old rotten wood. Boil the Lichen up in sufficient water one day, and the next day put in the wool, and boil up again till the right 47 colour is got. If the wool is left in the dye for a day or more after boiling, it absorbs more colour, and it does not hurt the wool, but leaves it soft and silky to the touch, though apt to be uneven in colour. Some mordant the wool first with alum, but it does not seem to need it. ”

“ It does not dye cotton or linen.
The other method is by the indigo vat process, which produces fast colours, but is complicated and difficult. In order to colour with indigo, it has to be deprived of its oxygen. The deoxydised indigo is yellow, and in this state penetrates the woollen fibre; the more perfectly the indigo in a vat is deoxydised, the brighter and faster will be the colour. For the dyeing of wool, the vats are usually heated to a temperature of 50°C. Cotton and linen are generally dyed cold. ”

“ A few of the natural dye stuffs are capable of dyeing cotton direct, without a mordant, such as Turmeric, Barberry bark, safflower, annatto. For other dyes cotton has a special attraction, such as catechu, fustic, logwood.
ON LINEN.—Linen is flax, derived from the decomposed stalks of a plant of the genus of Linum. It grows chiefly in Russia, Belgium, France, Holland, and Ireland. The plants after being gathered are subjected to a process called "retting", which separates the fibre from the decaying part of the plant. ”

“ It is used principally for wool. It does not produce a fast dye for cotton. With Bichromate of Potash as mordant, Old Fustic gives old gold colour. With alum it gives yellow, inclining to lemon yellow. The brightest yellows are got from it by mordanting with Tin. With copper sulphate it yields olive colours. (4 to 5% copper sulphate and 3 to 4% tartar) . With ferrous sulphate, darker olives are obtained (8% ferrous sulphate) . For silk it does not produce as bright yellows as weld, but can be used for various shades of green and olive. ”

“ Among these are Ladies Bedstraw, whortleberry, yellow iris, bracken, bramble, meadow sweet, alder, heather and many others. The yellow dyes are the most plentiful, and many of these are good fast colours. Practically no good red, in quantity, is obtainable. Madder is the only reliable red dye among plants, and that is no longer indigenous in England. Most of the dye plants require a preparation of the material to be dyed, with alum, or some other mordant, but a few, such as Barberry, and some of the lichens, are substantive dyes, and require no mordant. ”

“ Prolonged dyeing should always be avoided, as the yellows are apt to become brownish and dull. The chips should be tied up in a bag and boiled for 1⁄2 hour before using. It is still better to soak the wood over-night, or boil up in a small vessel and strain into the dye bath. The proportion of Fustic to be used for a good yellow is 5 to 6 parts to 16 parts of wool. ”

“ Gather the lichen off the rocks—it is best in winter. Put layers of lichen and wool alternately in a 57 pot, fill up with water and boil until you get the desired tint. Too much crotal will make the wool a dark red brown, but a very pretty terra cotta red can be got. No mordant is required.
To Dye Pink from a bright yellow Lichen. (Parmelia parietina) .
Mordant the wool with 3% of Bichromate of Potash, then boil with the lichen for 1 hour or more. ”

“ Every dyer should keep a record of his experiments, for this will become invaluable as it grows, and as one thing is learnt from another. The ideal way of working is not by a too rigid accuracy nor by loose guess-work, but by the way which practice has proved best: nevertheless, some of the greatest dyers have done their work by rule-of-thumb methods just as others have certainly worked with systematic exactness. ”

“ The advantages of the new colours were ease and simplicity of use, general reliability with regard to strength and composition, and certainty in reproducing the same colour again without trouble. With regard to fastness, to light and to washing there is practically little difference between the two. It is more the method by which they are dyed and not the dye itself (although of course in 3 some cases this is not so) that determines their fastness. The natural dyes are more trouble and take longer time to prepare. ”

“ In Sweden, Scotland and other countries, the peasantry use a lichen, called Lecanora tartarea, to furnish a red or crimson dye.
In Shetland, the Parmelia saxatilis (Scrottyie) is used to dye brown. It is found in abundance on argillaceous rocks. It is considered best if gathered late in the year, and is generally collected in August. Immediately after being collected, an iron vessel is filled with it, and stale urine then poured over it, till the vessel is full. ”

“ Archil is in general a very useful ingredient in dyeing; but as it is rich in colour, and communicates 54 an alluring bloom, dyers are often tempted to abuse it, and to exceed the proportions that can add to the beauty, without, at the same time, injuring in a dangerous manner the permanence of the colours. Nevertheless, the colour obtained when solution of tin is employed, is less fugitive than without this addition. ”

“ For instance: a carpenter has become so used to buying his timber in planks from a yard that he has nearly forgotten its relation to the tree. The man who works to designs conceived by somebody else with wood sawn by another man's machine must be deprived of the natural strength of the tree. ”

“ The dyer, like any other artist, is free to find his own methods, subject to the requirements of good and permanent craftsmanship, provided that he achieves the effects at which he aims. But it is supremely important that he should aim at the right effects ”

“ The cotton is put in, stirring for an hour to an hour and a half while the water gets warm: then the liquor is heated to boiling point and the cotton boiled a few minutes only. Slow raising to boiling point gives the best colour. Instead of using acetate of alumina, 120 the cotton can be impregnated with some astringent such as galls or myrobalans (1 lb. in 2 or 3 gallons of water with a little soda) . ”

“ The colour of wool varies from white to a very dark brown black, with all shades of fawn, grey and brown in between. The natural colours are not absolutely fast to light but tend to bleach slightly with the sun. ”