Rediscovering beautiful fabrics & hand made prints form Gujarat
Our enthusiasm to discover new fabrics leads us to the western region of Gujarat to know more about artisanal fabrics. Most of our efforts are focused into discovering natural fabrics and increasing our offering to various clients.
In this blog we take you in our journey of discovering ancient printing and dyeing techniques.
FABRICS
Kala Cotton of Kachchh is considered as the original pure Old World cotton of India. Kala cotton is indigenous to the Kachchh region and by default organic, as the farmers do not use any pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.
This crop requires minimal investment as it is a purely rain fed crop that has a high resistance to both disease and pests.
For a long time it had been neglected but now it is back under spotlight with hand weaving and spinning.
PRINTS
Batik
Batik is a technique of wax dyeing applied to the whole cloth. It is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a tjanting or by printing the resist with a copper stamp called a cap. The applied wax resists dyes and therefore allows the artisans to color selectively by soaking the cloth in one color removing the wax with boiling water and repeating if multiple colors are desire.
Ajrakh
Ajrakh is a traditional style of block printing which uses hand carved wooden blocks to print natural dyed on cloth.
This process involves between 13 and 20 distinct steps. The many processes of scouring, washing, printing, dyeing and final washing can take up to three weeks to complete.
Bandhani
Bandhani.. also known as Bandhej, is a type of tie-dye textil decorated by plucking the cloth with the fingernails into many tiny bindings that form a figurative design.
This technique involves dyeing a fabric which is tied tightly with a thread at several points, thus producing a variety of patterns like Chandrakala, Bavan Baug, Shikari etc; depending on the manner in which the cloth is tied. The main color used in Bandhana are yellow, red, blue, green and black.
Bhandhej is generally worn as a wedding outfit or on traditional occasions. Finer the Bandhani work, more expensive the fabric is.
