Abstract
Blue calico is an important component of Chinese traditional arts and crafts, which originated from the Ch’in- Han Dynasty, began in the Song Dynasty, and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Tianmen’s blue calico has a style of simplicity but elegance, and because of its relatively simple process, durable texture and meaningful patterns, it was once widespread in the Jianghan Plain and listed as the third batch of intangible cultural heritage in Hubei Province. This article focuses on the indigo dyeing process of Tianmen’s blue calico, and the conclusion: the optimized parameters of reduction process – the dosage ratio of indigo, caustic soda and sodium hydrosulfite is 2:3:9; reduction temperature is 45°C; and the time is 20min. Compared withsynthetic indigo, the dosage of sodium hydrosulfite with plant indigoincreasesby about 50%. The optimized dyeing process ofplant indigo: the mass concentration of NaCl is 60g/L, padding time is 20s, oxidizing time is 2min, and the number of padding is 12~14 times.The dyeing process of synthetic indigo: padding time is 20s, oxidizing time is 3 min, and the number of padding is 12~14 times.The color fastness to soaping of dyed yarns with plant indigo and synthetic indigo is similar.
