I have just returned from a month long trip to India, three and a half years after my last trip. After a few days of settling into a very different time zone, climate and pace of life, I soon felt quite at home, the places and people I visited seeming as familiar as if I’d seen them only a few weeks before. A busy schedule and little access to the internet meant I couldn’t blog about the trip as I went, so this is the start of a series of blog posts in which I will write about my encounters with various textile artisans – this time mainly weavers, as…
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Brilliant Bandhani
Much like the ajrakh block printing which was the subject of my last post, another resist-dyed textile craft of the same area – Kutch in north Gujarat, is bandhani or tie-dye. Like ajrakh its rich pattern and texture gives it the ability to sparkle and entrance the viewer or wearer. The tiny white dots created by meticulously tying thousands of sections of the cloth to resist the rich colours of dye it is then dipped in, create an illusion of stars in the night sky, much like the resist-printed patterns of ajrakh. Worn as odhini (shawl), choli (blouse) and gaghra (skirt) by women in many communities all over Gujarat and…
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The Ajrakh block printing of Kachchh, India
Against the dull canvas of the Kachchh desert the rich and bold colours of the textiles are strikingly displayed. The millennia old tradition of weaving and dyeing textiles originated in this Indus Valley region in the North West of India, and is still in abundance today. For a typical Kachchhi man or woman, their cloth is an essential everyday commodity and decoration as well as a symbol of their identity. Whether woven, embroidered, printed or tie-dyed, the textiles worn by a person in this area can reveal a multitude of details about their caste, gender, age, religious affiliation, marital status and economic standing. The highly skilled and patterned ajrakh block-printing…
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The process of ajrakh block printing according to Ismail Mohammed Khatri, Ajrakhpur
I have discussed the ajrakh block printing of Kutch, India in a few of my blog posts but have not yet written a post containing the details of the process (for details on the general background, read this post). In traditional ajrakh cloths, local artisans and clients could recognise the maker through the appearance of the cloth and process he had used. Each ajrakh artisan uses his own variation on the process. I learnt the process below from the renowned Ismailbhai of Ajrakhpur, who along with his sons Sufiyanbhai and Junaibhai, I am indebted to for their continuing help with my MA research. 1. The cloth is washed in water to…
