Showing posts with label dyeing. Show all posts

PRINTING

Fabric printing, also known as textile printing, has a rich history that dates back to ancient times. Fabric printing applies designs, patterns, or images onto fabric through various printing techniques. The history of fabric printing can be traced back to ancient times when people used different methods to decorate their textiles.

The earliest known form of fabric printing is block printing, which originated in China around 220 AD. This technique involved carving designs onto wooden blocks, dipped in ink or dye, and pressed onto the fabric. Block printing was also used in India and other parts of Asia, where it was known as"batik" or "wax-resist" printing.

In Europe, fabric printing began to flourish in the 12th century with the development of the printing press. Woodcuts and copperplate engravings were used to create designs, which were then transferred onto the fabric using a combination of ink and pressure. This method was time-consuming and expensive, mainly used for high-end textiles such as tapestries and draperies.

In the 18th century, technological advancements led to new printing methods, including copperplate and roller printing. Copperplate printing involved etching designs onto copper plates, which were inked and pressed onto the fabric. On the other hand, roller printing uses engraved metal rollers to transfer designs onto fabric.
After the development of the printing press in the 15th century, fabric printing became more widespread and accessible thanks to the invention of the steam-powered printing press. And later, the invention of the roller printing machine made it possible to produce large quantities of printed fabric quickly and efficiently. This allowed fabric printing to become more widespread and accessible to more people.

In China, silk fabric production was introduced during the Shang Dynasty. Silk became a highly prized commodity and was traded along the Silk Road to other parts of Asia and Europe. The Chinese also developed the art of block printing, which simplified complex designs to be printed onto fabric using wooden blocks.

In Europe, textile production became a highly specialized craft during the medieval period. Guilds were formed to regulate the industry, and fabrics were often produced using looms and machinery. During the Renaissance, Italian artisans developed new techniques for dyeing and printing fabrics, which allowed for more intricate and colorful designs.

And thus, the mass production of printed fabrics became popular for clothing, home decor, and other applications.

Today,
Fabric printing has evolved to include digital printing, screen printing, heat transfer printing, and other modern techniques. With the advancement of technology, designers, and manufacturers can now create highly detailed and intricate prints on various fabrics, making fabric printing a versatile and constantly evolving art form.

In conclusion, the history of textiles is long and varied, reflecting the ingenuity and creativity of human beings throughout the ages. From the earliest days of hand-woven fabrics to the mass production of synthetic materials, textiles have played a vital role in human history and are an important part of our lives today.

DYEING

The history of fabric dyeing dates back thousands of years, with evidence of dyed fabrics found in ancient civilizations such as Egypt, India, China, and Peru. The use of natural dyes, such as plants, minerals, and insects, was widespread, and each culture had unique methods and techniques for achieving various colors.

One of the earliest known examples of fabric dyeing is from ancient Egypt, where they used indigo to dye cotton and linen. The use of indigo spread to other regions, such as India and West Africa, where it became a major part of their textile traditions.

In India, the art of dyeing fabrics has been practiced for over 5,000 years, with natural dyes derived from plants and minerals. India's most famous natural dye is probably henna, which is still used today for temporary tattoos and hair dye. Indian textiles, such as the vibrant tie-dye fabrics of Rajasthan, are renowned for their bright colors and intricate patterns.

In China, silk was the primary fabric used for dyeing, with the earliest records of silk dyeing dating back to the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). The Chinese developed sophisticated techniques for creating a range of colors, using natural dyes such as indigo, cochineal, and safflower.
In Europe, fabric dyeing became an important industry before the development of synthetic dyes. The most famous natural European dye is probably madder, which creates a range of reds and pinks.

After the industrial revolution, synthetic dyes were developed, which revolutionized the textile industry. Synthetic dyes were cheaper and easier to produce than natural dyes, offering a wider range of colors. Today, most fabric dyeing uses synthetic dyes, although some artisans and traditional textile communities still use natural dyes.

Thanks

Ice Dyeing

There are so many techniques for special dyeing effects. Here are the useful methods. We will see more about other method in my next blogpost.

Tie Dye
Shibori
Ombre
Dip Dye
Shaded
Hand Paint
Resist
Batik
ice dyeing
spray dyeing

Among these, I think ice dyeing is a very interesting one. I searched and found that there are so many posts, articles, and videos as well, but these all are done on cotton using cold brand reactive dyes.
That procedure is very easy, as the cotton or silk can be dyed without heating or steaming.
When we use acid dyes, it becomes a bit difficult process, as acid dyes require steaming to fix the dyes on fiber.
So let's start the process.
Soak the scarves for at least 15 minutes using acidic acid (or vinegar). Let the PH be around 5, adjusted with acidic acid. Use 3-4 tablespoonfuls of common salt.

Random fold before putting ice cube

Arrange some ice cubes. Squeeze the scarf and make it semi-dry. Let it be a bit moist. If the scarf is very dry, it creates a problem in the migration and penetration of dyes. Basically, water is the main medium of dyeing here, we are selecting ice as the medium. The amount of ice required is as per the depth of the shade. if we require dark shade, then we should use more ice. Put a semi-dry scarf into a small pot, making some rough folds. Please don't use excess ice, calculate the amount of ice that will be absorbed by scarf only. Excess ice could ruine the pattern. At the end of process there should not be any water, let the melted ice water be take by the scarf only.

folded scarf along with required amount of ice cube

First, put the ice covering each and every part of the scarves. Do not leave any part uncovering the scarf. Remember to make random folds and pleats; this folding technique makes scarfs beautiful after dyeing. Here you can apply tie-dye and shibori folding techniques also.

randomly applied dyes powder on ice cubes

Put the acid dyes powder randomly. If you want to have some particular color on any part of the scarf, spread only that color on that area. If colors are mixed together, some different colors will appear. for example, if you put red and blue in the same place, then violet or purple will be seen after dyeing. Here I have used red, blue, green, and yellow colors.

Result after 12 hours.

This process is automatic. When the ice starts melting, dyes also start spreading. No human effort is required. The powder dyestuffs work amazingly. I said it automatically because ice, along with color, goes inside the fiber. We can't let it stop and divert to some other part. I also did it for the first time; that's why I was also curious to see the color-mixing effect.

Result after 24 hour

I have left it for 24 hours. When I did, it took 24 hours to melt. I did it in winter. Maybe it melts fast in the summertime. But leaving at 24 is the best idea, even in summer. Dyes penetrate perfectly if we extend time. The next morning when I take it out from the pot, it looks as shown below.

pattern seen after taking out from plastic pot

I dried the scarf. And to fix the color, it has to be steamed. But I was shocked by the result that all the dyestuffs I put had been migrated to fiber. I tested first by using a finger and then a white paper in both cases. I did not notice color coming out of the scarf. If PH is adjusted properly, dyes go inside the fiber easily.

final result

Before steaming, it was like the above-shown pictures. In layman's language, it is raw (NOT COOKED) color. So it has to be cooked:)

Steaming

Doing Steaming is difficult at home. Printed or painted textile steaming, also known as ager done by ager machine, is used in textile processing factories. Here I am going to do it by a domestic method. The basic purpose of stemming is to send saturated steam to the fabric. The domestic pot, as explained below, would be sufficient for fixing the dyes in fiber. It has to be placed in a steaming vessel so that no condensed water falls on the fabric.

At this temperature dyes reacts with fibre making a chemical bond and become the part of the fibre and no body can extract it out of fiber by any means.

Since the applied dyes by this method are raw and need to boil in the process of dyeing. As we can't put them in dyebath, we need to expose them or go through the steaming process which ultimately provides the required temperature like in the process of dyeing.

After steaming, it was washed multiple times, initially in cold water followed by luck warm and finally soapy water and dried. The final picture is displayed there.

Here is the link to video

Please click to watch the video

Tie dye is an art; this ancient dyeing technique is still extensively practiced all over the world. By using this method, fabric or the textile material is dyed by hiding the portion that has to be left untouched by colors using rope, thread, rubber bands, yarn, and string. So, the fundamental principle of TIE DYE is to partly or entirely stop the applied dye from dyeing the fabric.

Let's start tying (tieing). Dyer has to try with different fold and tie to get new design and pattern. As this a hand art, if noted down the process accurately the duplication could be very close to the original. There are an infinite number of methods one can bind, stitch, twist, fold or compress the fabric to obtain different pattern and design. So the design, pattern i.e. output is also infinite quantity.

Selecting dyes

Cellulose fibers such as cotton, linen, hemp, and rayon are dyed using REACTIVE DYESProtein-based fibers such as wool, silk, wool, and feathers, as well as the man-made polyamide fiber, nylon, can be dyed using ACID DYES.Some of the well-known dyes manufacturers are DYSTAR, HUNTSMAN, CLARIANT and BASF. These companies produce almost all range of dyes and finishing chemical for all kind of textile material. As these are multinational corporations, they have their distributors in almost all the country of the world.

Tied for dyeing

Pot dyeing

The tied scarves are put in a pot have the pre-dissolve dyes with acetic acid. This pot is placed on a stove and is boiled. After boiling the dyes migrate to fiber. At this stage, if we look at the water it becomes colorless or with very less color.

Cellulose fiber

Cold dyeing method --Normally cellulose fiber is dyed by cold type reactive dyes ( PROCION MX ) which are usually applied between 25 to 40 degree Celsius. And we don’t have to boil the dye bath.

Hot dyeing method-- This is a less desired process because it has to be dyed by increasing the temperature even up to boiling point.

An experienced or skilled dyer is required, to do both methods, to get better and expected result

Protein-based fibre

Here acid dyes are used to dye the fabric. We must boil the bye bath to migrate the dyes to the fabric.

Here is a tutorial video of tie dye. Here I have used LANASET Red2B

Now let's take out the scarves and see the result.

Result 1

result 2

result 3

Result all

Some more Tie dye sample images

Uploading few more images wait for updates

What is Pashmina?

Capra hircus

Pashmina is a kind of fine cashmere wool and is known for their softness and warmth. To stay alive, the freezing temperature at 14,000 feet height, pashmina- wool producing goat (Capra hircus ) creates an exclusive, extremely soft fur (inner coat) six times finer than human hair. One goat sheds about 80–170 g of fiber. Since it is only 14-19 microns in diameter, it cannot be spun by using machines, so the wool is hand-spun and woven into cashmere products containing, scarves, wraps, throws, stoles, shawls, etc.

Raw cashmere wool obtained from Capra Hircus

Cashmere wool fibers are 2 to 10 cm (1 to 4 in) long, could be white, light yellow, or gray, and are finer than sheep's wool. The stretch, tenacity, and bounciness are fundamentally the same as for natural wool, but due to its smaller diameter, cashmere is very soft. This luxury fiber is used entirely in clothing making it soft, warm, and lustrous, and have an excellent drape.

How to identify Pashmina yarn or fabric?

It is a very tough question; we cannot approve by just touching, seeing, or even just feeling its softness. Anyone can fool us, by saying or showing their salesmanship. There is a lot of misunderstanding about it. This may be because of the lack of scientific study, believing false Claims made by the staff of pashmina shawl manufacturers or exporters.

Each person does not know the chemistry of pashmina or cashmere, we need to do a microscopic inspection, or at least, we should be aware of its proprieties. As we mentioned above, wool and pashmina have the same properties except for their fineness which is their diameter. So first we have to classify the fiber, by measuring its diameter. Only then, we can differentiate between pashmina and wool. First, let us see this table which describes wool properties

If we study the above table, there are several parameters by which we can quickly identify yarn. Like, wool completely dissolved on a 5% volume of caustic soda solution on the weight of yarn. For example, if we perform a burning test, it also defines by flammability actions and the smell of burning hair. Similarly, Wool feels warm, springy, rough, and dry upon touching.
After confirming it is wool, to know whether it is pashmina or not, we must perform a diameter measurement test. If the microscopic measurement result is between 14-19 microns, then we can say it is pashmina.

How Pashmina scarves are made?

The process starts with fiber extracting, carding, combing, spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, printing, and finishing. This flow chart listed below describes the wool processing

How pashminas are made in Nepal?

Exporters of pashmina scarves in Nepal imports different type (count and ply) of wool, pashmina, and silk from China. They make the product as per their buyer’s specifications. First, either the yarns are dyed for making patterns like a stripe, or jacquard or go for warping, drafting, and weaving as per the specified reed, picks. Reed number and the number of filling yarn (picks), yarn count, and yarn ply define the weight of scarves after

weaving.

wool spinning wheel

What is 100% pashmina?

A scarf made by using only cashmere yarn, in warp and weft (filling), is called 100% pashmina scarf

warp and weft

If the warps are silk and the wefts are pashminas (cashmere) then the scarf made from this combination is called a "silk pashmina scarf (see above-illustration)
The reason behind adding silk yarn as warps are to give strength, by doing so, it looks good and makes it durable as well.
Here is the video which shows the making of pashminas.

What are 70:30 and 80:20 (summer or water) pashminas? And how to identify them?

If it is the case of blended yarn, the ratio can be correctly calculated at the time of mixing both pashmina and silk. For example, if we are making a 100 kg blended lot then add 70 kg pashmina fiber and 30 kg silk fiber and mix by carding machine, and then spinning gives the perfect result. But in the case of warps and wefts weaving is a bit difficult, that is, it is not as perfect as blended yarn, so as to calculate the ratio. The commonly known count of silk is 140, 210, and 20/22 which defines the silk thread diameter. So generally it is understood or seen that when we use 140 silk, then the ratio of pashmina and silk is 50:50Similarly, using 210 silk it could be 70:30, and using 210 it could be 80:20 pashmina and silk ratio respectively. It is usually understood by Reed number and filling yarn in an inch in Nepal. If a sample made by a particular reed number and filling yarns in an inch is a 70:30 ratio, then it is noted, and if it has to be done again, it is made as per those noted data.

What are the sizes?

12x60 or 18x72 inch Scarf
28x80 inch Stole
36x80 inch Shawl
54x108 inch Blanket

Weaving

Power Loom

initially, pashmina used to weave in a handloom. When the exporter started to get a bulk order, handlooms are not enough to meet the targeted production. Therefore, power looms are operated to produce in large quantities. Some buyer prefers hand-loomed scarves, so hand looms are still operated as well.

Because of the size and diameter of cashmere raw wool, it is initially believed that it can only be made handcrafted method. As textile technology is developing rapidly machines are also been customize as per the need.

The standard process is warping, drafting, weaving, dyeing, printing, fringe making, ironing, and packing

warp making

weft making

Cone to Hank making

Handloom

mending

Hand made fringe

Dyeing

As a pashmina is a kind of wool, It has to be dyed using "Acid Dyes."Acid dyes are made for dyeing wool, silk and other protein fibers, and nylon.
Multinational manufacturer companies like Huntsman brand name Lanaset, Clariant, brand name lanasyn Dystar brand name Isolan
These companies have manufacturing facilities in different countries and distributors and dealers in prime places in every country.
All the above-mentioned dyes manufacture metal complexes and Metal-free acid dyes. Metal complex dyes are somewhat dull but have excellent fastness compared to metal-free dyestuff.
Almost all acid dye has the same dyeing process.

How the desired shade is developed?

First, the given sample is matched with a small piece, like 5-10 grams in Laboratory. After perfectly matching it with the given sample, the derived dye formula or recipe is noted for bulk production.
Here is the youtube video, which typically explains the dyeing process.

Standard dyeing process

x% Dye

1% leveling agent

5% Glaubers Salt anhydrous,

PH 5.5 to 4 depending upon the depth of the shade

Start dying at normal temperature, raise the temperature to 1-degree centigrade per minute to boiling point. As this dying is an exhausting process check the shade at the end.

How the desired shade is developed?

First, the given swatch is matched with a small piece like 5-10 grams in Lab. After perfectly matching the dye formula or recipe is noted for bulk production.

Here are pictures of some special dyeing like tie-dye, batik, etc.

TIE Dyed

Hand-painted

Printing

As per the given design, it is printed by screen printing, hand painting, and digital printing method. These processes are carried out as per the buyer’s instruction. In such cases, the buyer provides digital images, sizes, the number of pieces to be printed per design, etc.

digitally printed cashmere scarves

block printing

typical print pattern

digital print pattern

screen printing frame

Export statistic

Pashmina goods have become the third main foreign export item of the country after garments and handmade woolen carpets. Nepalese Pashmina goods are a type of handicraft, which can be considered handmade high-quality goods of versatile use. Pashmina goods have been exported using HS Code 62.14.20.

In the case of packing, each product, by folding properly, is kept in single plastic bags and these plastic bags are filled in carton boxes. Nearly all Pashmina products do arrive in international markets from International Airport by Air Cargo and into India by Land.

Price

The price of Nepalese Pashmina products mostly is determined by their quality, size, color, and design. all Pashminas are produced in the Kathmandu Valley. They are mostly export industries. However, it has been assumed that as many as 5% of its products may be sold within the country. Pashmina products occupy more than 50% of the total export quantity of handicraft goods. So, it is the main export section under the handicraft goods class. The figure of international export marketplaces of Nepalese Pashmina products beats 40 out of which, Italy, Canada,, the USA, the UK, France, Japan, Germany, and India are the main ones.

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A short history of textiles printing and dyeing

Pashmina scarves Ice dyeing

Ice Dyeing

Steaming

Tie dye

Some more Tie dye sample images

Pashmina or cashmere scarves

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A short history of textiles printing and dyeing

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Ice Dyeing

Steaming

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Some more Tie dye sample images

Pashmina or cashmere scarves

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