Azerbaijani Rug - Dyeing Wool

Dyeing Wool

At dyeing workshops, professionals dye yarns with dye-stuffs mainly of plant origin, strictly following the centuries old traditional techniques of colouring. Though appearing to be simple at first sight, this work requires high skills of a dyer. To prepare the seven basic colors (red, green, yellow, black, dark blue, white, purple) and their tints used in carpetmaking, professional dyers use green walnut shells, the skin of pomegranates, indigo, leaves of the mulberry, quince and walnut plants, and roots of madder. For example, in order to achieve yellow and its hues, they use bulb onion peels, mulberry leaves collected in the late autumn, etc. To produce red and pink colors, madder is used, and to obtain dark blue, blue and green, indigo dye is used. At the very end of the yarn dyeing process a dyer adds salt, alum or vinegar into the dye solution to increase the intensity, fastness and durability of colours. Then, dyed yarns are pressed and dried with special techniques.