The external characteristics, value and use of blue calico

Blue calico is a traditional folk craft in China. Blue calico is made of cotton textiles and sanitary plants as dyes, and does not contain any chemical components. It is made by hand pressing, scraping and printing. Blue calico "turns blue with plaster, dries, and turns blue and white with grey medicine". The process is roughly as follows:

Cutting bluegrass into vats or ash pits, soaking in lime in proportion, removing stalks after bluegrass decays, beating seeds with wooden handles, precipitating, and removing water to obtain indigo.

Carve the required pattern with cardboard, spray tung oil after carving, add lime and soybean flour mortar, spread the cardboard on white cloth, print it with flour paste, dry it, and soak the cloth in indigo vat for several times.

After the cloth is dried, the mortar is scraped off, rinsed in the stream, and dried to become blue printed cloth.

Anxi blue calico is characterized by green, health and environmental protection. The dye of blue calico and resist agent are natural plants that can be disinfected.

People use indigo to treat parotid gland, acne, heat and detoxification, and repel mosquitoes. Therefore, people can wear blue calico clothes, curtains, quilts, scarves, wrapping paper and handkerchiefs made of blue calico, and children can play with toys made of blue calico.

The reason why the blue calico with a history of thousands of years can continue is not only the medicinal function, but also the artistic beauty of the content and the strong local flavor. Blue calico has always been simple and pure, and its themes and contents include figurative meaning, phonetic meaning, expressing thoughts and feelings through folk stories, traditional geometric patterns symbolizing auspiciousness, and "Hundred Flowers Picture" and "Hundred Days Picture".

In the 20th century, under the impact of modern civilization, many folk crafts will quietly pass away from us at any time. The more advanced science and technology, the more nostalgic people are. Blue calico, an ancient traditional craft, will become the support of people's nostalgia and bring people good memories. There is a good market for developing blue calico.