Calico-printing is the art of applying colours to cloth after it has come from the hand of the weaver in such a manner as to form patterns or figures. The art was originally brought to Britain from India, and was sometimes practised on linen, woollen, and silk, but most frequently upon that species of cotton cloth called calico. The process was originally accomplished by means of hand-blocks made of wood on which patterns or parts of patterns for each different colour were cut. These blocks were of various dimensions, according to the nature of the work, and where several colours were employed in one pattern, a block for each colour was necessary.
As an improvement in the method of printing from wooden blocks, especially where delicacy of outline was required, engraved copperplates were introduced about 1760; but the greatest improvement was effected by the introduction of cylinder printing about 1785, which had almost superseded the other methods, except for particular styles by 1900. The machinery then generally used consisted of various modifications of the cylinder printing-machine, in which a number of separate engraved cylinders were mounted, corresponding to the number of colours to be printed. Formerly the cloth had to pass once through the machine for every colour; but later, by an arrangement of machinery equally ingenious and effective, any number of cylinders were fitted on one machine, which acted on the cloth one after the other, and by this means the pattern was finished with a corresponding number of colours in the same time that was formerly employed to give one.
A great variety of methods have been employed in calico-printing, but they all fall under the general heads of dye-colours and steam-colours. Under the first head are included all the styles in which the pattern is printed on the cloth by a mordant - a substance which may have little or no colour itself, but has an affinity for the fibre on the one hand, and for the colouring matter on the other - the dye or colouring matter being subsequently fixed by dyeing on such parts of the cloth as have been impregnated with the mordant, and thus bringing out the pattern.
In steam-colour printing the colouring material is applied to the cloth direct from the printing-cylinder, and subsequently fixed by steaming. In steam-colours there is no limit to the number and variety of shades which may be produced, each colour-box on the cylinder printing-machine containing the whole ingredients essential to the production and fixation of a separate and distinct shade of colour. This process was superseding most of the other styles by the end of the Victorian era, the brilliant coal-tar colours so extensively used being almost entirely fixed by steaming.
The bodies used for fixing were tin mordants, tannic acid, etc, which were mixed with the dye-colours and printed together. The effects of calico-printing are varied by numerous other operations, such as the discharge-style, in which the cloth is first dyed all over, then printed in a certain pattern with discharge-chemicals, which either produce a pattern of some other colour, or one purely white, as in the Turkey-red bandanna handkerchiefs. The resist-style, in some respects, is the reverse of the discharge-style; the process being to print a pattern in certain chemicals, which will enable those parts to resist the action of the dye subsequently applied to all other parts of the cloth. After the prints have undergone the printing process they are submitted to a series of finishing operations, the object of which is to give to the fabrics a pleasing appearance to the eye. Research Calico-Printing
Chrome green is a composite pigment made by combining a small amount of Prussian blue with pale yellow chrome. Chrome green comes in various shades, all of which are opaque with good staining ability. Chrome green is fairly permanent, but tends to turn blue under the influence of weathering, and discolour upon contact with sulphur and alkalis. Chrome green darkens as it dries, making it a difficult pigment to colour match. Research Chrome Green
Dyeing is the art of giving colour to textile and other articles in such a way that the colours are more or less permanent, and not readily affected by the action of light, washing, etc. Like spinning and weaving it was originally a home industry, as it still is in many places. Until about 1850 natural dye-stuffs alone were employed, but the discovery of dyes of all colours that can be obtained from coal-tar products revolutionized dyeing as an industry, and the vegetable dye-stuffs were gradually superseded by the newer colours.
Before dyeing, the materials have generally to be cleansed or bleached to get rid of undesirable colouring matters or impurities; and frequently a textile material is subjected to some subsidiary treatment in order to obtain special effects. For example, cottonyarn may be subjected to the action of strong causticsoda ('mercerizing' process) while in a state of great tension, in order to give it a permanent silky lustre.
Dyeing is not only an art, it is also a branch of applied chemistry. One fundamental principle is, that the colouring matter and other necessary substances must be applied in a state of solution, and while in direct contact with the fibre they must be rendered insoluble, so that they are precipitated within or upon the fibre and thus permanently fixed. The method of effecting this varies greatly according to the fibre and the colouring matter employed. As a rule the vegetable and the animal fibres are dyed by very different methods. The affinity of the animal fibres for certain colouring matters is often so great that they are readily dyed by simple immersion in hot colour solutions;
but this simple process is not generally sufficient. According to the method of their application in dyeing the following groups: of dye-stuffs may be distinguished: Avid Colours, Basic Colours, Direct Colours, Developed Colours, Mordant Colours, Miscellaneous Colours, Reactive Colours.
The acid colours are so called because they are of an acid character and are applied in an acid dye-bath. As a rule, they are only suitable for dyeing the animal fibres, e.g. wool and silk, also leather, horn, feathers, etc. Only a few vegetable dye-stuffs belong to this class, for example, the purple colour orchil and the blue colour indigo extract. On the other hand, the acid colours derived from coal-tar - and increasingly petroleum - are very numerous and yield a great variety of hues - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black, each with its particular name.
The basic colours are so called because their essential constituents, to which they owe their dyeing power, are organicbases. The bases themselves are colourless and too insoluble in water to be of use, hence they are employed in the form of their soluble coloured salts, usually the hydrochlorides of the colour-bases. Their solutions are precipitated by tannic acid, because it combines with the colour-bases to form insoluble tannates. Wool, silk, and animal substances generally have a direct attraction for colour-bases, and hence these fibres are readily dyed by simple immersion in hot aqueous solutions of the basic colours. Cotton and linen, on the other hand, are not dyed so readily; they need first to be prepared or impregnated with tannic acid, and thus prepared are said to be mordanted, the tannic acid in this connection being styled the mordant. Most of the colours of this class are fugitive to light, and all but one, barberryroot, are derived from coal-tar products.
The direct colours are so called because they dyecotton direct, that is, without the aid of any mordanting process. The first of this class derived from coal-tar was congo red, discovered in 1884; this group includes a very great variety of fast colours, and forms, indeed, one of the most important and valuable series of dye-stuffs employed. Cotton, linen, and the vegetable fibres generally are dyed in the simplest possible manner by merely boiling them in a solution of the dye-stuff, with or without the addition of a little soap, carbonate or sulphate of soda, etc. Wool and silk are frequently dyed in the same manner as cotton. Very few vegetable dye-stuffs belong to the direct colours, e.g. Safflower, Turmeric, Saffron, Annatto. They are all fugitive, and have been of little or no importance to the dyer since the end of the 19th century. The coal-tar colours of this class, on the other hand, are extremely numerous.
The developed colours include a variety of colours which are formed in situ upon the fibre by the successive application of two or more substances. These colours are all of coal-tar origin. A number of them belong to the so-called azo colours, derived from compounds containing nitrogen.
The mordant colours form one of the most important classes of colouring matters, for they include not only most of the vegetable dye-stuffs, e.g. madder, logwood, fustic, etc, but also many valuable fast coal-tar colours, commonly known as the alizarin colours, after their typical representative, alizarin. These mordant colours have by themselves very little colouring power, as a rule, and if employed alone in dyeing give little or no result. If applied, however, in conjunction with metallic salts, notably those of chromium, aluminium, iron, tin, and copper, they each yield a variety of colours, according to the metallic salt employed. In employing them usually two distinct operations are involved: first, that of applying the metallic salt or mordant, called the mordanting process ; and second, that of dyeing proper, in which the mordanted material is boiled in a solution or decoction of the dye-stuff. During the dyeing operation the colouring principle of the dye-stuff combines with the metallic salt already upon the material, and the colour is thus produced and fixed upon the fibre. The method of mordanting varies with the fibre and the metallic salt employed. The vegetable dye-stuffs of this class include Madder, Sapanwood, Camwood, Barwood, Old Fustic, Young Fustic, Quercitron Bark, Persian Berries, Weld, Logwood. Madder was formerly the most important and highly valued of the dye-stuffs of this class, being especially employed to produce the fine 'Turkey-red' dye; but was entirely superseded by the coal-tar colour alizarin towards the end of the 19th century.
Reactive colours combine directly with the fibre being dyed through a chemical reaction and result in a fast colour. The first ranges of reactive dyes for cellulose fibres were introduced in the mid-1950s.
Similarly, the employment of cochineal (an insect dye) has also greatly diminished through the introduction of the cheaper colours. Camwood and barwood are almost entirely used in wool-dyeing, either in conjunction with the indigo-vat or for the purpose of dyeing various shades of brown. Old fustic is the most important of the yellow mordant dye-stuffs, and the colours are fast although not very brilliant. Young fustic yields fugitive colours, and has been little used since 1900. Quercitron bark is an excellent dye-stuff employed by wool-dyers for the production of bright orange and yellow colours. Persian berries and weld, a species of wild mignonette, are both excellent dye-stuffs, but their employment is now limited. Logwood is largely employed by wool, silk, and cotton dyers for dyeing black and dark-blues, which, although fast to washing, are only moderately so towards light. During the 20th century dyewoods were gradually replaced by coal-tar colours.
Among miscellaneous colours are several dye-stuffs applied in a distinct manner. Indigo is a dark-blue powder quite insoluble in water, but can be rendered soluble for dyeing purposes by two methods. The first method converts the indigo into so-called indigo extract, which is sold as a blue paste and applied as an acid colour in dyeing wool and silk. In the second method the indigo-blue is converted into indigo-white, which readily dissolves in the alkalipresent, the solution thus obtained being called an indigo-vat. If cotton, wool, or silk is steeped for some time in the clear yellow solution of such a vat, and then exposed to the oxidizing influence of the air, they are dyed a permanent blue. The indigo-white absorbed by the fibre loses its acquired hydrogen, and thus insoluble indigo-blue is regenerated within and upon the fibre. Aniline black is a valuable colour, produced direct upon the fibre by the oxidation of aniline, and remarkable for its extreme permanency.
Catechu is a vegetable dye-stuff used in dyeing cotton and woollen brown. On wool, catechu yields khaki browns in single bath by using copper sulphate as the mordant. On silk it is largely employed for weighting purposes in the process of dyeing black. Chrome Yellow, Iron Buff, Prussian Blue, and Manganese Brown, employed in cotton dyeing, are frequently classed as mineral colours. Chrome yellow is obtained by immersing cotton successively in solutions of acetate of lead and bichromate of potash, whereby the yellow precipitate of chromate of lead is fixed upon the fibre. Iron buff is obtained in a similar manner by the successive application of iron sulphate and carbonate of soda, and finally developing the full colour by washing with water and exposure to air. The buff colour is really due to the precipitation of oxide of iron on the cotton. Prussian blue is at once developed by passing the buff-dyed cotton through an acidified solution of potassium ferrocyanide. The production of manganese brown on cotton is similar to that of iron buff. The brown colour ultimately produced upon the fibre is an oxide of manganese. The mineral colours are very useful for certain purposes, and are to be regarded as very fast to light. Research Dyeing
Grey describes the infinite shades of colour between brilliant white and black.
Pearly - A very pale bluish-grey colour, paler than slate grey.
Silver - A greyish-white.
Slate - A pale bluish-grey colour. Slate grey implies hardness, conjuring images of the hard, cold natural stone.
Steel - A pale bluish-grey colour. Steel grey implies hardness in much the same way as slate grey, but with the image of the metal rather than the mineral.
Mottling is the representation of the highlights and shades characteristic of natural wood, in its representation in graining.
Mottling is a defect in sprayed film. The mottling defect appears as a uniform series of imperfections of a roughly circular shape. Research Mottling
A pearl is a lustrous concretion produced by certain bivalve molluscs (muscles and oysters) and valued as a gem. Pearls consist almost entirely of nacre, which is the substance forming the inner layers of the mollusc shells. Nacre, known as mother-of-pearl, is composed primarily of aragonite crystals. The pearl is an abnormalgrowth resulting from the invasion of the body of the mollusc by a minute parasitic worm (it was previously believed to be invasion by a grain of sand or similar which caused the pearl to be produced), which cannot escape and irritates the mollusc which retaliates by coating the irritant with layer upon layer of nacreous material. Both marine and freshwater molluscs produce pearls, but the most valuable varieties originate in the pearl oyster of the Persian Gulf. The most highly prized pearls are spherical. When a pearl that has been cut from the shell presents a hemispherical surface, it is sometimes called a bouton pearl. If a solid pearl has an irregular shape, having grown over a rough object, it is known as a baroque pearl. In the jewellerytrade, pearls are commonly known as pear, bell, or drop, according to the shape. Pearl coloration varies widely, the most prized shades being white, black, rose, and cream. River pearls are produced by freshwater mussels in various parts of the world. China is the principal trader in river pearls. Natural, spherical pearls have been cultured successfully since 1920. In this process a mother-of-pearl bead, from three-quarters to nine-tenths of the diameter of the desired product, is introduced into the
pearl oyster. Over a period of years the oyster deposits layers of nacre around the bead. Cultured pearls are not easily distinguished from genuine pearls except by an expert. The technique of producing spherical cultured pearls was developed in Japan, and the culturing of pearls is a major Japanese industry - a small bead of mother of pearl being inserted into the oyster which grows the pearl around the bead. Artificial pearls, in contrast to cultured pearls, are entirely man-made, largely of glass. Research Pearl
White is a colour combining the reflection of all wavelengths of light. There are numerous shades of white, quite where grey ends and white begins is a matter for poetic interpretation.
Antique white - A very pale yellowish-brown off white colour.
Beige - A drab, yellowish-grey colour.
Cream - A yellowish-white colour, frequently more yellow than ivory.
Ivory - A yellowish-white or off-white colour (the colour of ivory) often associated with skin tone.
Linen - A flat, pale yellowish-grey just off white.
The alder is a genus of plants of the birch family Betulaceae, consisting of trees and shrubs found in the temperate and colder regions of the world. Common alder (Alnus glutinosa) is a tree which grows in wet situations in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Its wood, light and soft and of a reddish colour, is used for a variety of purposes, and is well adapted for work which is to be kept constantly in water. The roots and knots furnish a beautifully-veined wood well suited for cabinet work. The bark is used in tanning and leather dressing, and by fishermen for staining their nets. This and the young twigs are sometimes employed in dyeing, and yield different shades of yellow and red. With the addition of copperas it yields a black dye. Research Alder
The Angle Shades (Phlogophora meticulosa) is a moth of the family Noctuidae with a wing span of between 45 and 50 mm native to the Mediterranean region, but migratory north around July and august where upon a second generation flies from August to Autumn returning south. The caterpillars are unable to bear frost, so the second northern generation are wiped out each year with only the southern generation surviving. Research Angle Shades
The Belarus Red (also known as the Krasnaya belorusskaya, Krasnobelorusskaya, Byelorussian Red, Red White-Russian, White-Russian Red) is a breed of cow characterized by a medium long head, not wide, with a long face. The poll is pronounced. The horns are of medium size. The neck is thin and of moderate length. The withers are not sharp, occasionally divided. The chest is of medium depth, wide enough. The back is level, slightly narrow. The loin is long and level, of medium width. The mid-part of the body is well developed. The abdomen is capacious, not drooping. The rump is level, slightly raised. The hindquarters are of medium length and width, with protruding hips. The legs are comparatively thin, bony, not long, correctly set. Sometimes legs are splayed or bowed. The udder is medium in volume, glandular, cup-shaped or roundish. The teats are cylindrical, of medium size. The skin is thin, elastic, mobile. The skeleton is light and strong. The musculature is moderately developed. The conformation is harmonious and compact; the constitution delicate. The colour is red or rust-red of various shades. many animals are noted for their longevity. Research Belarus Red
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Calico-Printing
