Hello Sewing Friends!
Today I’m happy to announce the beginning of INDIA WEEK on MARCYTILTON.com. While we are better known for designer deadstock and popular prints, few fabrics ever found fame as fast as our Indian ikats and kanthas. Watch for some truly amazing fabrics from us this week!
First up for INDIA WEEK we have a set of hand dyed cotton ikats. You’ll find them all below and in our INDIAN IKAT COLLECTION. If you’re new to the world of authentic artisan Indian cotton ikats, the Sustainable Fashion Collection gives a great description:
"The term “ikat” refers to the dyeing technique used to create the designs on the fabric. It is a resist dyeing process, where bundles of yarn are tightly wrapped together and then dyed as many times as is required to create the desired pattern. This dyeing process is different because the yarns are dyed before being woven into cloth. In most of the other resist-dyeing techniques, like batik for example, it is the final cloth and not the yarn, that's dyed. Once the yarns have been suitably dyed and dried, the weaver lines them up on the loom to form the pattern. The design takes form as the yarn is woven into cloth. This is an incredibly complicated process, as the weaver has to precisely dye the threads, and place them correctly so it forms the correct pattern when woven. Just to reiterate how hard this is... in order to replicate a pattern, the weaver would have to dye the thread in exactly the same place as before AND line it up on a loom in EXACTLY the same place AND then they'd have to weave it exactly the same way."
I invite you to read more about handmade Indian kanthas on my blog. Also, stay tuned for new garments featuring some of our new kanthas!
Happy Sewing!
