Colour

One of the most common responses that people have when they come into the shop is to the range of colours here. I must say that it is one of my favourite things about the shop too. The range and variety of colours in yarn never ceases to amaze me. Before I opened the shop I went to Yarndale in Yorkshire and the whole world of hand dyed yarns opened up before my eyes and blew me away. I had absolutely no idea that there was so much variety, so many people playing with colour, so many endless possibilities (not to mention the huge fun of naming the colourways which I must confess has fascinated me since I was old enough to read the names on my mother’s lipsticks). And then at the last East Anglia Yarn Festival I found myself next to Caroline, founder of the online course Dyeing Made Easy, and I succumbed to temptation and started to learn to dye yarn myself – I am now halfway through the course and have been having enormous fun.

I have been dyeing yarn on my days off in my kitchen. My father, who is 87, lives with us and occasionally potters in and asks questions about textile dyeing which has forced me to look beyond the immediate chemistry and into the history of textile dyeing, obviously an enormous subject. It seems that humans have been dyeing textiles since time immemorial, using colours provided by nature (natural dyes), to be found in berries, and leaves and mud for example. The archeological evidence that we have dates dyeing practices back to 4000 BCE, with red-stained fabrics having been unearthed in Turkey, and remnants of indigo dyed fabrics having been found in Peru. It is likely that dyeing was intially a practical thing – for example darker fabrics are more resistant to showing dirt, making them ideal for everyday use, but as socieityes advanced the techniques and meanings associated with dyed textiles evolved as well.

In ancient Egypt, linen fabrics were dyed with indigo (blue), saffron (yellow) and madder (red). The Egyptians associated colours with spiritual and social meanings, so yellow symbolised divinity and was used by priests, while green was linked to rebirth and fertility. Textile dyeing in India was very sophisticated too, using a lot of indigo and madder for a strong red and different techniques such as tie-dye and Klamakari (hand-painting with natural dyes) which were both cultural identifiers as well as art forms in themselves. In China, the focus was on silk dyeing. Yellow, considered sacred, was reserved for emperors. It was in China that the mordanting (fixing the colours) was developed, allowing artisans to create vibrant long-lasting colours. These methods were closely guarded secrets for a long time. In Africa, dyeing techniques were deeply tied to cultural narratives. For example the bogolanfini or mud cloth of Mali was made by fermenting mud and applying it to handwoven cloth for textiles to be worn during significant life events or as talismans for protection. The patterns in the textiles would tell stories of the wearer’s heritage, beliefs and social standing. In Mesopotamia, the cochineal insect, harvested from cacti, became a prized source of red dye – a vibrant crimson that was, for example, used by the Mayans and Aztecs in rituals on fabrics offered to deities as symbols of devotion. In ancient Rome Tyrian purple, derived from the mucus of sea snails, was so rare and labour-intensive that it was reserved for emperors and senators and became the colour of power. In the Middle Ages in Europe sumptuary laws were in place dictating who could wear certain colours. Scarlet, produced from the kermes insect, was reserved for the nobility, while peasants wore undyed or muted fabrics. These laws enforced social structures with colour serving as a visual marker of rank.

Everything changed, however in 1856, when the English chemist, William Henry Perkin (then aged 18) was experimenting in his home laboratory, trying to synthesise the anti-malarial drug quinine. In an experiment with a compound called aniline, one of the simplest chemical components of coal tar, he obtained a black precipitate. On testing its solubility, he discovered that alcohol extracted a purple colour, which readily dyed silk, and was much more stable in sunlight than any other natural purple dye then in use. He patented this first synthetic dye in that same year and began to manufacture it on an industrial scale. At first he called the dye aniline purple, but following its success in France, it was renamed mauve, after the French word for the purple mallow flower. A technique was developed to apply the dye to cotton fabrics and soon everyone was using it. It even became one of Queen Victoria’s favourite colours.

The discovery of mauve sparked an international race to produce other synthetic dyes from the myriad chemicals in coal tar. Then in 1868 the chemical structures of alizarin (red) was identified as being a derivative of coal tar and in the 1880s the chemical synthesis of indigo was begun, by the German chemist Baeyer, although it took years to produce a commercially viable industrial route. Within a few years the indigo trade was dead and from then until now almost all the indigo used has been synthetically derived. The next breakthrough, by James Morton in the early 1900s, was to make the dyes colour fast so that they did not fade in sunlight.

The synthetic dye industry was dominated by Germany for half a century, with many of the chemists learning their trade in the UK because the UK government chose to neglect the dye industry and focus instead on the existing and well established textile industry. By 1913, Germany was exporting about 135000 tonnes of dye comparted to Britain’s 5000 tonnes. At the outbreak of the First World War, the only khaki dye available for British Army uniforms was made in Germany and had to be imported secretly. However, in 1926, the British government created ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) and colour chemists set about developing new synthetic dyes for use on the growing range of new synthetic fibres, such as Nylon and Terylene, which could not be dyed using traditional methods. Today, the world’s dyestuffs industry produces around 500000 tonnes of synthetic dyes each year.

It must be acknowledged that synthetic dyes brought with them environmental challenges. The chemical-intensive processes required for their production and application have led to water pollution, soil degradation and health hazards for workers. While coal tar is not still part of the process, petro-chemicals are. This has resulted in a renewed interest in sustainable dyeing practices, including Bio-based dyes derived from algae, bacteria and food waste, waterless dyeing using CO2 instead of water and colour-changing smart dyes that react to temperature or light (still being researched for functional textiles such as adaptive clothing or medical fabrics).

I am learning to dye using synthetic dyes fixed to yarn with acid, known as acid dyes. In this case, the acid is vinegar. The process of dyeing will be the subject of another blog sometime. It is fascinating. I am loving the bright colours that the dyes I am using have produced, but in my heart of hearts I prefer the more muted tones of natural dyes and that is something that I plant to experiment with too. And I will be launching my first range of hand dyed yarns at the East Anglia Yarn Festival in March which is very exciting (for me at least).