Washing the textiles

Washing the block printed, natural dyed textiles.

Dying Block Printed Textiles

Dying with iron liquor.

Boiling the textile with natural dye materials in a copper pot.

These textiles have been block printed and dyed repeatedly to build up the design.

Natural Dying

Pomegranate husks

Indigo plant

Indigo pot

Block Printing, India

The fabric,

the blocks,

printing with gum arabic.

Ajarakh Block Printing

Cloth is resist block printed with gum arabic.

Khatri Abduljabbar Mohammad (2003 National Award Winner) is known for his double-sided block printing.

Wedding Garments

Members of our tour party are dressed in heavily embroidered wedding garments.

Mutwa Embroidered Blouse

Another Mutwa embroidered blouse in the kungeroo style.

While visiting a village in the Kutch area we attended a workshop where we were shown how to use metallic thread to work the 2 main stitches shown on this blouse.

Embroidery from the Kutch

Metallic tape embroidered over a tie dyed fabric on this head shawl.

Newspaper is used as a pattern

Embroidery from the Kutch, India

More embroidered blouses from Kutch, Gujarat in the Guj style.

Shisha mirrors, buttonhole stitch, satin stitch, knots & pompoms.

Mutwa Embroidery

Mirror glass is cut to shape with scissors for shisha work.

A blouse embroidered in the Guj style where there are woven braids across the front.

A blouse in the Kungeroo style. It is usually made in one piece & is fully embroidered with a larger range of stitches. It is often made for a daughter-in-law.

Mutwa Embroidered Blouse

A Kungeree type of Mutwa blouse with embroidered panels for an unmarried girl.

The panels are embroidered flat then sent to the tailor to make up the garment, unsually with prints in the style of patterned fabrics the British brought to India in the 1930s.

The village is known for its tiny mirror glass (shisha) held in place by fine buttonhole stitches.

Bandhani/ Tie Dye Workshop

Once dyed the folded fabric is pulled open so the resist wrappings pop off (the blue thread).

The resist-dyed pattern is revealed. The textile is left wrinkled...

...or ironed out flat.

Rabari & Bandhani Embroidery, NW India

We visited a Rabari textile collector in his home.

Next we had a workshop with the National Award '85 Winner who does Bandhani embroidery, Aminaben Ismail Khatri . We learnt how to tie minute circles of cloth in patterns. She now employs 500 women to tie lengths of silk & cotton in her designs. The image shows a sack of tied lengths of cloth ready for dyeing.

The tied cloth is dyed.

At this stage it may be re-tied to build up the design before being dyed again. This process can be repeated many times depending on how complex the design is.