Sue's visit

A few days after Judy, Jim and Karen left, Sue showed up as most likely our last visitor in India. One of the things that is so great about visitors is that they bring their own ideas about what is interesting and what they want to experience. Sue's visit had almost no overlap with our previous visits. No long walks through the jungle searching for new birds. No jeep safaris or Taj Mahal. No crazy, busy old Delhi. Instead we visited the Modern Art Museum and the Indian Craft Museum. We traveled to Jaipur, not to see the Amber Fort, but to take a class in block print and indigo dyeing. We shopped a LOT, and we had a great time!

The block printing workshop was particularly interesting, especially because we had been buying so many things in this kind of fabric! The factory was in the village of Bagru outside of Jaipur, one of the areas that has produced block printed fabric for centuries using essentially the same process.

 We were given an introduction to the different plants and minerals used in the process, along with some rather questionable medical advice! Apparently the same minerals that can be used as mordant to prepare fabric for the dyes can also cure heart disease... who knew? We learned which ingredients are used to create specific colors and which ones will fix the color to the fabric after the dye has dried. Reds, yellows, blacks and browns are made with these natural dyes, all other colors are made with synthetic dyes. (Blue and green relief prints are made with the indigo process we learned on our second day.)

When the fabric comes from the mill in these super long strips, it is first washed to remove anything left from the production process and hung to dry in the hot (Very Hot!) sun. The result is something like a Cristo exhibit with all one long sheet draped over metal rods!

After it is dry, the strip is taken down and either goes through a mordent washing to prepare it for printing on white, or goes through a dyeing machine to give it a base color.

Fabric is fed onto a giant roller so that it can start the dyeing process.

Two rollers, one with red fabric and one with a yellow that will eventually be dyed black. 

The machine can roll from the front or the back roller, so fabric goes through the pool of dye multiple times.

The white fabric (Sue was walking under in the previous picture) here has been fully rolled into the machine, and in the background you can see the red fabric that has gone through the dye and the fabric on the back roller that was yellow is now black.

Our scarves are washed in water and then in the mordant solution...

... and then hung to dry before we print on them.

One of the colors we can print with is black, so we learned a bit about how the black dye is made.

Pots of fermenting black dye.

Then we were able to poke around in the room full of old blocks. This room really needed a good librarian, as it was horribly organized and there seemed to be tons of missing or misplaced blocks. But at least they were pretty!

A printer at work. He was using a synthetic (blue) dye and printing a repeat pattern. He was very quick, and very accurate!

Our instructor (the owner of Jai Texart) showed us the basics for block printing before letting us select our blocks and start printing.

Me, planning out my next step.

Sue decided to do an advanced maneuver and created and oval pattern with a square block!

The professional's work out drying in the sun.

According to our instructor, the intensity of the sun will effect the colors. Brighter sun leads to brighter colors, so colors have seasons. Dull colors are sometimes called "monsoon" colors because the sun isn't as bright in the monsoon season.

After the dye has dried our scarves are put through a process that turns the brownish color dye to red and fixes the color to the fabric.

These tubes pipe in steam to make the water boil. The fabric is washed in this boiling solution for about 10 minutes, and then washed in water...

...before it dries again in the sun.

My finished product!

Sue with her finished product!

Our small class at the end of the day.

Day two was an indigo dyeing class. Indigo dyeing involves applying a mud paste to the fabric where you don't want color, and then immersing the entire piece in the indigo dye.

The indigo vats are 15 feed deep and last for more than 10 years. The process of starting an indigo vat is complicated and detailed, but once it is set they just replace the lost water at the end of the day, cover it up over night and start again the next day. 

Indigo sheets drying in the sun.

The blocks I selected for my pattern.

Sue testing out a few blocks for her pattern.

After you stamp on the mud, you have to cover it with sawdust to keep it from smearing, help it to dry faster, and add another layer of protection from the indigo.

My scarf going for its first bath!

After it dried, I was able to add another row of mud, to create a third shade on my scarf.

My scarf going in for its second bath with more patterns stamped in mud.

I also made an apron with just one relief layer.

This is the best picture I got that shows the ink as it first comes out of the bath. It takes only a few seconds for oxidization to turn the color from green to blue.

Hanging out in the print room while things dried. There is quite a bit of waiting in this process, and probably even more if you aren't there on a sunny 105 degree day!

Lots of blocks to choose from.

The mud bath.

One of the blocks I used on both of my projects.

This fabric had first been printed with a blue synthetic dye, then printed with its first mud layer and drying before it goes to the first indigo bath.

Some more of the professional's work, drying and waiting for its first indigo bath.

Sue's scarf goes in for its second bath after her final application of mud.

The fabric is washed quite a few times to get the excess indigo off as well as the mud. The mud lasts only a few minutes in water, that is why the immersion in the indigo isn't for all that long.  Once the fabric has soaked for a little while, it is agitated to get off the remaining mud, and then shaken out before drying again in the sun.

Sue snapping her scarf out after washing to prepare for the final dry.

Final drying. The fabric on the left was our test sheet where we could try out different design blocks. It only has two tones because we didn't add any mud after the first bath.

Sue with her final product...

... and me with mine!

This man is at the block print museum, demonstrating the art of producing the blocks themselves. He is using a hand drill that he controls with a bow, along with small metal chisels. 

And now for something totally different. One of the shops I took Sue to in Delhi sells old saris, ranging from true antiques to some from the 80s and 90s. They can be repurposed in lots of ways, and in some cases the needlework is incredible. I bought this scarf made from a 1940s hand stitched sari, and I love it!