IN VIEW OF THE BEGINNING it is desirable to record what still survives of the traditions of making good things; and I shall endeavour to publish the instructions & advice of men & women who still follow these good traditions.
Douglas Pepler.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| I. | INTRODUCTION | [1] |
| II. | WOOL, SILK, COTTON AND LINEN | [11] |
| III. | MORDANTS | [24] |
| IV. | BRITISH DYE PLANTS | [37] |
| V. | THE LICHEN DYES | [45] |
| VI. | BLUE | [63] |
| VII. | RED | [87] |
| VIII. | YELLOW | [107] |
| IX. | BROWN AND BLACK | [122] |
| X. | GREEN | [133] |
CHAPTER I.
DYEING has almost ceased to exist as a traditional art. 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.
There is unfortunately good reason for it. 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 beautiful colour. Dyeing as a chemical science has not been studied for the last 50 years without producing good results. But there is this great difference between the chemical commercial dyes and the traditional dyes—that with the commercial dyes it is very easy to produce ugly colours, the beautiful colour is rare; but with traditional dyes it is difficult to make an ugly colour, and good colour is the rule.
It was in 1856 that mauve was produced from coal tar by an English chemist, and this began a new era in dyeing. The discovery was developed in Germany, and the result was the creation of a science of chemical colouring.