Making blue calico: The process of making blue calico.

Making blue calico: The process of making blue calico.

In the art class, the teacher invited Mr. Lu Ruixing, an expert of Wuxi blue calico, to give a lecture in our school, and also asked him to bring his collection of physical tools for making blue calico to our school, and set up a "Blue Calico Museum" in the school to let the students know the history of Wuxi blue calico and give us a general understanding of the production process. I think this knowledge is very interesting. Now I will introduce you to the history of blue calico and its making method.

Blue calico, also known as "dyed valerian", is usually woven from cotton, hemp and other plant fibers, and is a hand-printed homespun. Wuxi's blue calico has a long history. In the middle of the 20th century, there were more than 30 large and small dyehouses in Wuxi, which played an important role in Wuxi's history and economic development. Its production technology is one of Wuxi's important intangible cultural heritages.

Traditionally, there are four methods to make blue printed cloth, namely wax valerian, sandwiched valerian, twisted valerian and gray valerian. In class, we only learned Jia Valle. Here I will briefly explain how to make Jia Valle.

The process of blue printed cloth is to clamp the cloth with carved patterns and then dye it, hence the name "Jiawal", and its operation process is very simple.

First, use tung oil paper to carve the disc, and use a carving knife to carve flowers on the cardboard. The carving knife needs to be vertical at the moment, and the patterns on the upper and lower carving knives should be consistent. Most of the patterns on the woodcut are based on folk stories and dramatic figures, among which animals, plants and flowers are the majority. The pattern symbolizes auspiciousness and is full of festive colors. In the museum, we also saw many carved patterns left over from the 20th century, including "Phoenix wearing peony" and "Peace through the years" in the late Qing Dynasty, and "Celebrating liberation" and "socialist education" in the early days of liberation. These exquisite prints are the basis of making blue printed cloth.

The second step is called pulp scraping, that is, the pattern engraved with tung oil paper is covered on the wet grey cloth, and the dye-proof pulp made of soybean powder and lime is evenly scraped on the pattern.

When the resist pulp is dry, you can expose the negative. At this time, as long as one corner of the faceplate is erected, the grey cloth can be removed. This step seems simple, but if it is not an experienced printing and dyeing worker, it is difficult to do it well, and it often destroys the integrity of the pattern when it is uncovered. I also tried several times in succession when I was learning to expose the version, and all of them succeeded.

After the printing plate is exposed, dry the grey cloth scraped with dye-proof pulp, and then put it into indigo dye vat for repeated dip dyeing. The dye liquor in the vat is made of wild natural blue through retting and fermentation, so it is called indigo.

After repeated dipping, it is the job of scraping white. () At this time, just clean the dyed cloth and spread it flat, and scrape off the anti-dye pulp on the cloth with a kitchen knife.

Finally, the cloth with the dye-proof pulp scraped off is washed for two or three times to remove the residual mortar and floating color, and hung on a clothes rack to dry.

All the work is done by hand, the materials used are easy to obtain, and the manufacturing process is relatively simple, so this dyed fabric can be said to be a completely environmentally friendly product.

Learning how to make blue calico not only makes us know about Wuxi, a folk handicraft, but also makes us realize the wisdom of working people, which inspires us to carry forward and study national traditional art and protect the intangible cultural heritage of the motherland with our own strength.