Batik and other pattern dyeing

by Walter Davis Baker; Ida Strawn Baker

DYES

The colors available for craft work are commonly grouped into the following classes, which will be briefly described:

Direct Colors. These are so called because they are applied to all fibers directly without the use of mordants. They are principally used for dyeing cotton. Some dyes of this class have affinity for both cotton and wool. Most of the package dyes sold at the local stores are of this class. They are applied to cotton in a boiling bath and to wool at high temperature near the boiling point. Different assistants are used varying with the dye and the nature of the fabric.

The direct colors, being very soluble, are prone to “bleed” when the goods are washed, but owing to this same fact it is easy to produce level dyeing on the goods. On this same account, however, and also on account of the high temperature required, they are not well suited for pattern dyeing.

Acid Colors. These have great commercial value for dyeing wool and sometimes silk. The best of them are quite fast to light but not to washing. They are not suitable for cotton or linen.

Basic Colors. These will dye wool and silk directly and also raffia, straw, basketry material, leather and wood. They dye cotton when mordanted with tannic acid, and this constitutes a very large commercial use. Basic dyes are especially strong in coloring power. Many of them are fugitive to light. A few of the best of them, however, when properly applied, are fast to washing and fairly fast to light.

Sulphur Colors. These are used extensively on cotton, giving colors fast to washing and to light. The dyeing is done at high temperature in a strongly alkaline bath of sodium sulphide along with other assistants. The colors are all dull and the range of colors is not complete, there being a lack of reds. These dyes are not suitable for silks.

Vat Colors are so called because the method of dyeing is that of the indigo vat. Indigo has been known for a long time, but only in recent years have other dyes of this class been produced, until now the series includes the entire range of colors. As a class they are the fastest colors ever known. The best of them are so fast that the cloth will wear out without the color changing. They are used chiefly on cotton and linen, sometimes on silk.

Vat dyes have been very expensive and scarcely obtainable during the war. Their future is of great interest and importance both in the industries and to craft workers.

In addition to the dyes above mentioned there are many others the use of which is quite complicated and technical and therefore confined to the industries.

For a fuller discussion of dyes and their uses the reader is referred to Pellew’s “Dyes and Dyeing” (Robert McBride & Co., New York). This is a most excellent book written for craftsmen. Like most of our literature, the treatment of dyes is based upon pre-war conditions, when nearly all of our colors were imported. The latest edition, however, contains an added chapter dealing with the present transitional state, incident to the transfer of the industry to this side of the water and the development of great American color houses.

It may be added that the leading firms carrying school art supplies offer dyes in suitable form especially adapted for the problems in pattern dyeing.

Perhaps a few suggestions to the less experienced of our readers will prove helpful. All of the good dyes manufactured today are in a very pure form. The use of one dye alone often gives results that are crude without any subtle beauty. It is frequently necessary to apply the principle well known to all workers in color, that colors are softened and beautified by small admixtures of their compliments; that one color that is cold, or another that is hot, becomes warmed or toned by a suitable admixture of other colors.

It may be stated that most of the beautiful dyeing is built up from two or more colors. This is accomplished, according to the nature of the dyes and the fabric, by mixing the colors in the same dye-bath, or by dyeing the cloth successively in different colors. Of course the previous condition of the fabric must be taken into account. A bleached cotton cloth must be treated differently from a grayed one if an equally soft effect is desired.

In the old days dyes contained impurities which often caused beautiful grayed effects. But it is inexcusable today for anyone with knowledge of the above principle and with elementary knowledge of dyes and dye-baths not to get equally good results.

The inartistic work that we see so prevalent today in the realm of dyed fabrics is due in part to ignorance and lack of appreciation of good color and in part to the commercial race for profit. As the taste of the people makes demand for better things the response of industry will not be wanting.

Nor need the craftsman of today spend idle time mourning the disappearance of vegetable colors and his necessity for using coal tar dyes. We must remember that only the best of the vegetable dyeing has come down to us. The proportion of poor work with vegetable dyes has always been as large or even larger than with the present-day colors. We are too prone to compare the ordinary home dyeing of today or the cheaper commercial dyeing with the good pieces that have been preserved from the past. When in justice the comparison is made of the best with the best, the coal tar dyes not only do not suffer but they really gain.

The coal tar dyes are like the vegetable dyes in the sense of being organic. In many instances they are identical chemically with corresponding dyes formerly obtained from vegetables. The one difference, as we have indicated, is their purity. Just as our granules of sugar have displaced the sweetening of former days; just as our modern medicines have succeeded the herb-teas of our grandparents, so also have come our dyes. All are achievements of science.

Coal tar dyes have come to stay, vegetable dyes for the most part have gone and will not return, and there is no sadness in the word. It is rather for us to rise to the challenge that has come, to recognize our greater heritage, and by pains, patience and intelligence in our work to ply the art worthily.