Dyeing is the craft of imparting colors to textiles in loose fiber, yarn, cloth or garment form by treatment with a dye. Archaeologists have found evidence of textile dyeing with natural dyes dating back to the Neolithic period. In China, dyeing with plants, barks and insects has been traced back more than 5,000 years.[1] Natural insect dyes such as Tyrian purple and kermes and plant-based dyes such as woad, indigo and madder were important elements of the economies of Asia and Europe until the discovery of man-made synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century. Synthetic dyes quickly superseded natural dyes for the large-scale commercial textile production enabled by the Industrial Revolution, but natural dyes remained in use by traditional cultures around the world.
Aal or Indian mulberry (Morinda tinctoria) is the source of the morindone dye sold under the trade name "Suranji". It is extensively cultivated in India for the dyeing of cotton, silk and wool in shades of red, chocolate or purple, dependent on the mordant used.
adjective
Adjective dyes are those dyes that require use of a mordant to bind the color to the fiber.[2]
alkanet
Alkanet or dyer's bugloss (Alkanna tinctoria) is a traditional plant source of red dye.[3]
alum
Alum (aluminum sulfate) is a naturally occurring basic mordant widely used in the ancient world.[4]
Aniline dyes or basic dyes are a class of synthetic dyes derived from coal tar, first discovered in the 19th century. These dyes produce brilliant colors that work well with animal fibers, especially silk. Because of poor colorfastness, aniline dyes are seldom used with textiles today.[7]
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is a flowering plant native to eastern North America; its root is the source for a red dye used by Native Americans.[9]
brazilwood
Brazilwood is a red-brown dye from either of two related trees. The original brazilwood,
sappan wood (Caesalpinia sappan), is native to India and was exported to China by 900 BCE and to Europe via the Muslim world by the Early Middle Ages. Portuguese explorers discovered a similar tree growing in the New World and named the surrounding country Brazil. This tree is the Brazilwood (Caesalpinia echinata) used by contemporary craft dyers.[10]
Cudbear is a purple dye from the lichen Roccella tinctoria which also produces archil and litmus. Cudbear is one of the few natural dyes to be credited to a named individual, Dr Cuthbert Gordon of Scotland, who patented the process of its production in 1758.[8]
cutch
Cutch is an ancient brown dye from the wood of acacia trees, particularly Acacia catechu, used in India for dyeing cotton. Cutch gives gray-browns with an iron mordant and olive-browns with copper.[18]
Dyes are color-bearing organic compounds that can be dissolved in water or another liquid so that they will penetrate fibers.[19]
dyebath
A dyebath is a solution of dye and water or other liquid in which textiles are dyed.[20]
dyed in the wool
Dyed in the wool or dyed in the fleece refers to fibers that are dyed prior to spinning. Compare to dyed in the hank or yarn-dyed; piece-dyed (dyed after weaving); and garment-dyed, dyed after sewing or knitting.
dyer's broom
Dyer's broom (Genista tinctoria), also known as dyer's greenweed or dyer's greenwood, is a garden plant used to produce yellow dyes.[21]
Fugitive colors are prone to fading when exposed to sunlight (fugitive to light) or washing, as opposed to colorfast.
fustic
Fustic or old fustic is a brilliant yellow dye derived from the inner bark of the dyer's mulberry tree Maclura tinctoria of the West Indies and Mexico.[18]
Gall nuts, nutgalls or oak apples are a tannin-rich growth on oak trees produced by an infection of the insect Cynips gallae tinctoriae, used as a dye and a mordant. Commercial gall nuts are harvested from the Gall Oak (Quercus lusitanica), also called Lusitanian Oak or Dyer's Oak, native to Morocco, Portugal, and Spain.
Grain was the Medieval word for the red insect dye kermes. Dyed in the grain refers to dyed with kermes, or kermes in combination with another dye, producing colors such as crimson in grain, violet in grain.[15]
I
Indian madder
Indian madder or munjeet (Rubia cordifolia) is native to the Himalayas and other mountains of Asia and Japan. Munjeet was an important dye for the Asian cotton industry and is still used by craft dyers in Nepal.[22]
Logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum) is a dyewood native to Mexico and Central America which produces a fast black in combination with a ferrous sulfate (copperas) mordant.[25] Despite changing fashions in color, logwood was the most widely used dye by the 19th century, providing the sober blacks of formal and mourning clothes.[26]
Madder (rubia tinctoria) and related plants of the Rubia family are a source of good red dyes containing alizarin and purpurin. Madder was a dye of commercial importance in Europe, being cultivated in the Netherlands and France until the market collapsed following the development of synthetic alizarin dye in 1869.[27]
A mordant is a chemical used in combination with dye to "fix" the color in the textile fibers. By using different mordants, dyers can often obtain a variety of colors and shades from the same dye.[30]
Ochre is an iron oxidepigment from clay that can be used to dye textiles a ruddy or reddish-brown color. Evidence of textile dyeing with ochre has been dated to the Neolithic.[32]
Phoenician red is a red dye related to Tyrian purple or royal purple, extracted from several genera of sea snails, primarily Murex brandaris the spiny dye-murex (currently known as Bolinus brandaris).[33]
pigment
Pigments are insoluble color particles that may be attached to the surface of cloth using a binding agent. Solutions of binders and pigments are called pigment dyes.[34]
A fabric or garment which is prepared for dyeing, abbreviated PFD, is specially made to be dyed. PFD fabrics have been desized, scoured, and fully bleached, but have been processed without optical brighteners or softeners which can interfere with dye uptake.[37]
Quercitron is a mustard yellow natural dye obtained from the bark of the Eastern Black Oak (Quercus velutina), a forest tree indigenous in North America.[38]
Reactive dyes are a class of synthetic dyes that first appeared commercially in 1956, after their invention in 1954 by Rattee and Stephens at the Imperial Chemical Industries Dyestuffs Division site in the United Kingdom. Reactive dyes are used primarily to dye natural fibers and cellulose fibers such as rayon.[39]
resist dyeing
Resist dyeing and the related resist printing are terms for a number of traditional methods of dyeing textiles with patterns. Methods are used to "resist" or prevent the dye from reaching all the cloth, thereby creating a pattern and ground. The most common forms use wax, some type of paste, or a mechanical resist that manipulates the cloth such as tying or stitching. Resist techniques include screen printing, tie-dye, ikat, and batik.[39]
royal purple
Tyrian purple or royal purple is a purple-red dye which is extracted from several genera of sea snails, primarily Murex brandaris the spiny dye-murex (currently known as Bolinus brandaris). Murex dye was greatly prized in antiquity because it did not fade, rather it became brighter and more intense with weathering and sunlight.[33]
rubia
Rubia is a genus of plants that are sources of the red dye madder.[27]
Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) is a flowering plant native to Asia that produces a substantive yellow dye for natural fibers. Dried safflower blossoms can be used to produce yellow, mustard, khaki, olive green and red colors. Cotton tape dyed red with safflower was formerly used to tie up government papers in Britain, giving rise to the term red tape.[40]
saffron
Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) that produces a golden-yellow carotenoid dye called crocin.[41]
Turkey red was a strong, very fast red dye for cotton obtained from madder root via a complicated multistep process involving "sumac and oak galls, calf's blood, sheep's dung, oil, soda, alum, and a solution of tin."[43] Turkey red was developed in India and spread to Turkey. Greek workers familiar with the methods of its production were brought to France in 1747, and Dutch and English spies soon discovered the secret. A sanitized version of Turkey red was being produced in Manchester by 1784.[44]
Tyrian purple
Tyrian purple or royal purple is a purple-red dye which is extracted from several genera of sea snails, primarily Murex brandaris the spiny dye-murex (currently known as Bolinus brandaris). Murex dye was greatly prized in antiquity because it did not fade, rather it became brighter and more intense with weathering and sunlight.[33]
Weld (Reseda luteola), also called mignonette or dyer's rocket, was an important yellow dye of the ancient Mediterranean and Europe.[45]
woad
Woad (Isatis tinctoria) is an indigo dye-bearing indigenous plant of Assyria and the Levant which has been grown in Northern Europe over 2,000 years as a source of blue dye. Woad was carried to New England in the 17th century and used extensively in America until native stands of indigo were discovered in Florida and the Carolinas.[6]
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Chancey, Jill R., ed. (2005). By Native Hands: Woven Treasures from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. ISBN0-935903-08-9.
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