Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum

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textiles from Sichuan and Shaanxi other than those required for
the making of army uniforms and banning common people from
wearing clothes with tie-dyed patterns. Although these economical
constraints were lifted in the Southern Song period, by then the
previous strong interest in this kind of textile-pattern dyeing technique
had been lost. After the Song technological breakthroughs in
other weaving and dyeing methods made possible the production of
many varieties of patterned textiles, time-consuming tie-dyed fabrics
were largely neglected. The basic technique, however, has survived
to the modern times and is still practised on a small scale, mostly
in the provinces of Jiangsu, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and
Guizhou.
THE VERTICAL STRIPES IN THIS YARDAGE are made by pleating
the white cloth along the warp at regular intervals from selvedge
to selvedge. The pleats are held in place by parallel horizontal rows
of stitches on both sides of the cloth, also made at regular intervals.
The cloth becomes a long strip once it is gathered together tightly
by drawing up all the threads. This is then bound by stout thread,
soaked in water to eliminate the air in the cloth, and dipped in the
dye vat. Since only the edge of each pleat comes into direct contact
with indigo, a pattern of blue stripes results. Slight differences
in the tension of the stitches
and the binding thread, as well
as uneven moisture distribution
in the cloth all help to create
a very special design effect.
The stripes are soft-edged. Each
one also shows individual or
interlinking crystal-like bubbles
at different places. Such details
add much visual interest to the
dyed fabric. Instead of rigid and
sharp-edged stripes, the pattern evokes images of a curtain made of
strings of beads or an outdoor grille in the winter, with its accumulated
ice starting to melt in the early morning sun, dripping slowly
and hardening again in crystal forms later in the day when cold winds
whip through.
THE BARBED WIRE LATTICE PATTERN in this yardage is made
essentially by folding, stitching, and tying. The cloth is folded horizontally
in accordion fashion. Sets of diagonal lines resembling the
Chinese character for the number
eight yv. are first marked
side by side on each fold, with
both ends of each line stopping
short at the two edges of the
fold. Cloth is pinched with the
fingers along each line and a
single row of running stitches
is made close to the edge of
the fold. When all the stitching
is completed, the threads
are drawn up tight and knotted.
After dyeing and removal
of the threads the lines are each
flanked by two rows of asym-
9. LENGTH OF FABRIC WITH STRIPED PATTERN, Linen, 2003, Nantong, Jiangsu
province, Gift of Dr. Ka Bo Tsang in memory of Mrs. Tsang Ng Sheung, 2004.68.8m,
W. 03.5cm
10. LENGTH OF FABRIC WITH BARBED-WIRE LATTICE PATTERN, Cotton, 1988,
Kunming, Yunnan province, On loan from Mrs. Sara Irwin, L2004.7.2, W. 87 cm
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