The traditional production of indigo-dyed adire involves the input of two female specialists-dyers (alaro), who control production and marketing of adire, and decorators (aladire), who create the resist patterns. In the oldest forms of adire, two basic resist techniques are used to create soft blue or white designs to contrast with a deeply saturated indigo blue background. Adire oniko is tied or wrapped with raffia to resist the dye. Adire eleko has starchy maize or cassava paste hand-painted onto the surface of the cloth as a resist agent. Further experimentation led to two additional techniques. Adire alabere involves stitching the cloth with thread prior to dyeing to produce fine-lined motifs. Adire batani is produced with the aid of zinc stencils to control the application of the resist starch.