Art of Dyeing Wool

[ Rang-razieh Pashm ]

The Qashqai are famous for their magnificent Jajim and rugs and other woven wool products. The wool produced in the mountains and valleys near Shiraz is exceptionally soft and beautiful and takes a deeper color than wool from other parts of Iran.

Preparing wool

Cutting the wool from sheep is the men’s responsibility. Women were mostly busy spinning the wool into thread or yarn, to provide materials for weaving. All thread is dyed with natural colors and dried in an open area.

Dyeing

Thousands of years ago, Iranians had a rich understanding of natural materials. They developed powerful dyes to decorate rugs. The number of materials used for different dyes is small, but they knew how blend the colors to make many different colors.

They found their best pigments in the desert. For instance in the city of Kerman, red color was obtained from a little insect named Kermis. The insect has a kind of pigment that can provide brilliant red, pink, or purple.

Preparing the wool for dyeing

The traditional steps are:

• Scouring: This means washing the wool in water mixed with natural detergent to remove dirt, grease, and other materials from the fleece. The wool should be in 60ºC (140ºF) water for one hour.
• Drying: The wool may be spread on a clean surface or it could be hung up to dried.
• Combing: The wool will be combing by traditional wooden comb.
• Spinning: This is the process that turns wool fibres into long strands of yarn.
• Hanking. This process often needs two persons to release the yarn and to wind or coil the yarn to form many loops / a skein.
• Dyeing: In a cauldron (a large metal pot with handles, used for cooking over an open fire) dyes and hot water (at specific temperatures depending the dye) the skeins of wool are placed and stirred.
• Drying: The skeins of wool are hung to dry in a open and sunny area.

Dyes

Iranians used natural dyes which were derived from plant materials such as:

• indigo (blue and violet from the leaves),
• madder (reddish, from the plant genus Rubia),
• oak (brown derived from wounds/galls in the bark),
• sumac (rust/brick from the berries)
• saffron (golden-red from the pollen),
• pomegranate (orangish peels of the fruit),
• cochineal (scarlet pigment from an insect),
• walnut (brown from shells or skins),
• pistachio (greenish husks),
• and larkspur (olive colors flower of the buttercup family).

Nowadays synthetic dyes are used to dye wool. Synthetic dyes are cheaper and easier than natural and vegetal dyes.