Learning about block printing in Jaipur, India

Block printing workshop, Jaipur, India

I’ve been back from India for two weeks — and granted it’s been a week of brain fog and a week of work mayhem — but I still have yet to figure out how to describe the trip to anyone. It was such a rich and immersive experience, it felt like we were there much longer than we were, and I really struggle to summarize it. I loved it so much. Even just trying to write about the workshop aspect for the sake of the blog, I feel like I can either write a postcard or a book; anything in between is impossible. So I’ve decided to write you a postcard (is how it feels, anyway) and say the same thing I’ve been saying to my husband and friends who want to hear about it: Ask me a question! And I will elaborate accordingly.

Wood block printing at the studio of Brigitte Singh

The core of the trip was an Ace Camps workshop on block printing in Jaipur, Rajasthan, led by my collaborator and friend Jen Hewett, and it was a better experience than I had even hoped. We actually had three teachers. First, Jen taught a version of the handprinting process that can be done at home using readily available art supplies, since carving a wood block is obviously a very specialized/localized skill. (The at-home method can also be learned from her book Print, Pattern, Sew.) She demonstrated how to create repeats and other techniques, and we practiced printing either on yardage or whatever finished goods we’d brought. My best result was a set of scarves I printed with a super-simple motif inspired by the giant paving stones at the Taj Mahal, which I had the honor of visiting beforehand. During the first phase of the workshop, we also took a field trip to the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing to learn about the history of block printing in the region, and got to see master printers at work there and in a visit to Brigitte Singh’s beautiful compound (above), where we also got to see the carving process. All of which was groundwork to be followed by two brilliant days printing with wood blocks in Bagru studios, learning from local experts.

Mud resist workshop, Ojjas, Bagru
Mud resist indigo dyeing, Bagru, India

Our second teacher, first day in Bagru, was Raj (above) whose company, Ojjas, is part of a collective of manufacturers committed to sustainable practices such as using natural dyes and recycling the water involved. With Raj and her team, we learned about mud resist (dabu), using their wood blocks to print with their specially-made mud on fabric, which we then sprinkled with sawdust and laid out in the sun to dry. We did two pieces — a practice print and a finished scarf — which were variously dipped into vats of kashish or indigo, then another round of mud resist and a dip in the same or opposite dye, depending, for a variety of final results. (Naturally, Jen’s was amazing.) It was a day with a lot of downtime, waiting as each step dried in the sun, and my favorite part was listening to Raj talk about the relationship between climate and textile traditions in different parts of India, as well as the current state of the business of block printing.

Wood block printing workshop, Jai Texart, Bagru, India
Wood block printing workshop, Jai Texart, Bagru, India

And then our second day in Bagru, the last official day and culmination of the workshop, our third teacher was Hemant of Jai Texart (in the blue apron, above) — an unforgettable experience that I wish I could repeat. We’d had the opportunity to submit artwork ahead of time for the carvers to convert to a wood block, which we received upon arrival in Jaipur. After giving a short talk about natural and synthetic dyes and then showing us the grounds and their various capabilities (during which we helped mordant fabric for the next group), Hemant taught us some best practices for block printing, set us up with a series of tasks to perform and get the hang of, and then we got to print a giant stole using our custom blocks and any of theirs they had laid out for us, and our choice of four natural dyes. Not having made anything I especially loved on dabu day (when I let perfectionism get the better of me), I was feeling extra pressure to leave with a treasure, and I’m exceptionally happy with how mine turned out.

One-of-a-kind block printed scarf by Karen Templer

But far more than what I made, what I truly treasure is what I got to see and learn and, most of all, the people we got to meet, who were so generous in showing us their craft. As exquisite as block-print textiles are, I feel like they are one of those things that are easy to overlook or take for granted in our age of mechanized and digitized everything. I mean, how many people even realize it’s a handcraft, or marvel at the fact that it persists to this day? It is incredible that there are still artisans who painstakingly carve designs into chunks of wood, dyers who extract inks to be used with them, printers (human beings, not machines) who stand at long tables — padded by layer upon layer of burlap — dipping those mostly 6″ or 8″ wood blocks into a little wooden tray of ink and stamping the design onto fine cotton muslin, repeating each stamp across the fabric (without any markings or guidelines), then going back over the same ground with the next color, one block at a time, until they’ve created yardage. And these are skills that have been passed down through generations across centuries. Experiencing it all first-hand has given me a whole different level of appreciation for it.

Wood block printed fabric, Jaipur, India

See? I barely told you anything at all and yet this is six paragraphs long, so please ask me anything you want to know more about, and I will happily oblige. It’s an experience I’m profoundly grateful for and eager to discuss.

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Elsewhere + news to come

Yarny links for your clicking pleasure

It’s May, and I know some of you are wondering about Summer of Basics! My apologies for the cliffhanger — I’ve been thinking about retooling it a little bit for this year and hope to have an announcement about that next week. If you have thoughts on it in between, please do leave a comment below.

And in the meantime, a little Elsewhere—

— Data nerdery in knitted form: The National Parks Tempestry Project is kind of mind-blowing (thx, DG) (photo above left)

— “How sewing improved my mental health — and restored my professional ambitions

Spectacular

I love this profile of textile artist Llane Alexis (previously mentioned here)

How to dye with osage orange (photo above right)

Brilliant refashion

What a treasure!

— and I’m eager to listen to this interview with Imogene+Willie cofounder Matt Eddmenson

Happy weekend, everyone. I’d love to hear what you’re working on!

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PREVIOUSLY in Elsewhere: Wool dogs and whaling wraps

Dyeing arts

Dyeing arts: Foraged inks and natural dyes

“Being a writer who still uses ink to write out, and then cross out, each early draft of a manuscript,” novelist Michael Ondaatje writes in his foreword to Jason Logan’s incredible book Make Ink, “I had to meet him.” Ondaatje had been given samples of Logan’s inks made from peach pits, clam shells, kerosene — his specialty, and the subject of his book, is creating ink from foraged materials. When they met, “it felt like being introduced to someone with the skills of some lost medieval craft.” The fact that Ondaatje still writes in ink is astonishing, but also, what kind of craft book includes a conversation with the likes of Ondaatje, and artwork by a panoply of creatives (or “visual thinkers”) from artist/illustrator Gary Taxali to painter Hiroaki Ooka* to writer Margaret Atwood? We’ve got bookstore aisles for literary fiction and creative non-fiction, but a literary craft book is a different breed of cat. And one I’m highly on board with — albeit belatedly, as this has been sitting on my desk since September, waiting for me to notice how great it is.

There are loads of craft books so pretty you might happily put them on your coffee table and never do anything more than flip through them admiringly. Others you actually crack open and make things from. As beautifully written as it is photographed and designed, this one begs to be read from cover to cover, like a good essay collection, whether or not you ever attempt to make your own inks (or for what purpose). Especially if you’re the sort who enjoys learning the obscure histories of things — like, say, Oak Gall Ink:

“… an inerasable ink called iron gall, oak gall, or, more recently, registrar’s ink. It was the ink of record for weddings, funerals, and contracts; before that it was the ink found in one of the oldest surviving Bibles, the Magna Carta, and Beowulf. It was the favored ink of da Vinci, Victor Hugo, Bach, and the US Postal Service. This is an ink with a pedigree.”

Oak Gall is black, yes, but like any good dye book, this one is full of recipes for an entire rainbow of colors, to be used in art making or writing, on paper or fabric, presumably. I’m particularly smitten with the aqua blues of Copper Oxide Ink, and although I may not ever make any, I love knowing it’s possible. And look forward to reading every page of this gorgeous book.

. . .

Also, not a book but I recently discovered that natural dyer Kathryn Davey (who I took a class from several years ago) has a full-length tutorial on her blog for dyeing with avocados. I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time and can never find enough info to feel like I know what I need to do. It’s so simple that most dyers, when asked, go “oh it’s the easiest, just boil ’em up and add your yarn or fabric.” But … pits or skins or both? How much dye matter as a ratio to the water? Do you need to worry about mordant? Thaw the pits if you’ve frozen them? Strain it or what? I have so many questions, and Kathryn’s is the most in-depth blog post I’ve seen.

. . .

Happy weekend, everyone! What are you working on?

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*Ooka was new to me and I love their work.

PREVIOUSLY in Books: Weaving Within Reach — Or, what to do with your yarn leftovers

Elsewhere: Sheep, avocado pink, and the unending cleverness of makers

Elsewhere: Sheep, avocado pink, and the unending cleverness of makers

I have an epic stack of links for you this round, so we better get started!

— Please read this one when you have time to sit with it: Navajo shepherds cling to centuries-old tradition in a land where it refuses to rain (thx, Katherine)

— And this: Physicists are decoding math-y secrets of knitting to make bespoke materials (thx, Martha)

— Are you doing the spring 10×10 challenge? This one is co-hosted by @selltradeslowfashion and @buyfrombipoc, hence the extra long hashtag. I’m sitting it out as usual (except the one time) but always love poring over the feed

— Seen Renée Gouin’s Women in Clothes (via @ebonyh) and Liisa Hietanen’s crochet humans? (thx, DG)

— Used Ravelry’s Road Trip Planner?

— “He has the gentle, attentive touch of someone washing a baby. Only with sharp metal blades.” (photo above right)

Ode to avocado pink (photo above left)

Immigrant Yarn Project looks amazing (thx, Carolyn)

— I’m loving all the offers of help for BIPOC trying to break into the industry, like this and this and this — if you’re aware of others, please link them in the comments!

— I’m a little obsessed with all the patchwork #wikstenhaori jackets, such as Edina’s and Arianna’s

— Amy Palmer’s amazing Captain Marvel sweater

This video of screenprinters in India adding layers of color to yardage

— This sentence: “She knows love is often a few rows short of perfection but keeps you warm anyway.”

— and this miniature style muse

If you haven’t seen all the great responses on Wednesday’s Q for You — or haven’t weighed in — don’t miss that, either.

Happy weekend, everyone!

IN SHOP NEWS: For the first time this year, I think, we’ve got all three colors of the Town Bag in stock, all three colors of the waxed canvas Field Bag (camo! plum!) and all four colors of the plain canvas Field Bag. (Although very few of some, so use that Notify Me button if you run into it!)

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PREVIOUSLY: Elsewhere

Elsewhere

Link list for fiber and textile lovers

Happy Friday! Oh wait, that’s not right. But happy last blog post of the week! And sorry about forgetting to actually hit publish on yesterday’s until mid-morning — thanks to Kate for telling me it wasn’t up. Oy! There’s a ton of exciting stuff happening at Fringe HQ right now — from fall blog events to new goods coming down the pike — and I’ve decided to take a two-day break from blogging while I concentrate on getting all these other ducks into their respective rows. But I’m leaving you with plenty of links to dig around in, and I’ll be back to blogging for Monday!

– In case anyone missed the late note on Monday’s post, there’s now a video version of my folded neckband tutorial saved at the top of the @fringesupplyco Instagram profile (the written version is here)

Good news and bad news with regard to how our clothes/fabrics are dyed (Related: Stony Creek Colors US-grown natural indigo dye is now easy to get!)

– And speaking of natural indigo: Wow, wow, WOW

– Excellent summary of 9 ways to take a conscientious approach to your wardrobe

Sienna’s handmade travel wardrobe is awe-inspiring

This beautifully drawn queue makes me want to resume my Fashionary one

Great interview with Jen Hewett about perfectionism, diversity and so much more

Felix might be the dress for me

Karyn has me considering a cut-and-sew cardigan

Want to invest in a yarn dye house?

Wear smiley-face overalls?

Hang a fringe chandelier in your bathroom?

It’s your life, friends — do your thing!

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PREVIOUSLY: Elsewhere

Top photo © Karen Templer; bottom photo © A Verb for Keeping Warm

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Squam part 2: Knitting, dyeing, hiking, wearing

Squam part 2: Knitting, dyeing, hiking, wearing

Squam Art Workshops takes place at an old summer camp in New Hampshire, on the shore of Squam Lake (where On Golden Pond was filmed). It’s actually two camps, built one right after the other in the late 1800s by a civil war widow and her protegé, and combined into one after the death of the older woman. It’s about as picturesque a place as you could ever imagine, so you spend a lot of time just ogling and photographing your surroundings, from the rustic cabins with their screened porches and iceboxes (literally) to the docks and the woods and the paths and the phone-booth cabin and the dining-hall window … and the list goes on. My first afternoon, before my cabin mates arrived, I wandered around shooting Fringe bags everywhere, from the woodshed to the wheelbarrows. It’s the sort of place that makes everyone look like a brilliant photographer.

On the second and third days, I taught my cables class. And on Friday afternoon, when my second class let out, I was overcome with that school’s-out-for-summer feeling. I’d be working like a madwoman before I left, then teaching (which I sincerely love and enjoy) and then suddenly I realized I had almost 48 hours to just enjoy the place and the people and my cabin mates, which this year were Kristine and Adrienne from Verb, my beloved pal and two-time cabin mate Mary Jane Mucklestone, and Jessica Forbes, the co-owner of Ravelry, who’d I’d met briefly on many, many occasions but had never gotten to spend any time with. She is a HOOT! So there was a lot of dock-sitting and knitting, porch-sitting and knitting, fireplace-sitting and knitting. On Saturday, MJ and Adrienne and I hiked up to the top of Rattlesnake (point? ridge? peak?) and took in the incredible view of the lake. This is MJ at the tippy-top, below right:

Squam part 2: Knitting, dyeing, hiking, wearing

But I’m getting ahead of myself. So Friday afternoon: Class is over, I’m done teaching, and I’ve come prepared. The really hard part about teaching is not getting to take classes, when you’re surrounded by all these people learning to block print and macrame and make beautiful journals and … so many temptations. But before I left for camp, it occurred to me there might be the slight possibility of dipping a little something into Kristine’s natural indigo vats when her students were done. She was very sweet to indulge me (even though it was really wrong of me to ask) so these little bundles are what I had packed in my bags, just case:

Squam part 2: Knitting, dyeing, hiking, wearing

And here’s how they turned out:

Squam part 2: Knitting, dyeing, hiking, wearing

The upper one is the white linen shell I had sewn just in time for Squam last year. And the smock is my once-white State Smock, which was getting a little “ring around the collar”-y. The both came out almost exactly as I had imagined them, and I can tell you that dyeing with a few friends and a can of beer, on the wraparound porch of a lodge building overlooking a scenic lake, is one lovely way to spend a Friday afternoon. My biggest thanks to Kristine for the dyeing and to Mary Jane for the beer!

So I came home with two new-again garments, but I know you’re wondering how my ultra-minimal packing list played out in the woods. Here are all the ways the contents of my suitcase got worn (with a bonus tee I bought at the gift shop while I was there) —

Squam outfits

The cardigan was frequently in my bag (or over my shoulders) just in case, but it was mostly too warm for it. I wore the clay pants 5 out of 6 days, and the jeans only once. Those pants are PERFECT in this setting, and barely even showed dirt. And it was fine that I only had my Chucks with me — even on the bouldering part of the hike. (Although I did also have flipflops for shower shoes, basically.)

For the full inventory/origins on the garments, see my packing post. And to see the real-time Story of my week in motion, watch the highlight reel in my Instagram profile. I’ll be watching it anytime I need a moment of peace.

Squam part 2: Knitting, dyeing, hiking, wearing

PREVIOUSLY: Squam part 1, Gauge (and other) lessons

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Craftlands: Slow Fashion retreats

Craftlands: Slow Fashion retreats

One of the sure signs that the Slow Fashion movement is growing all the time is the number of slow-fashion-focused retreats that have been cropping up. At present, I’m aware of 4 that are happening in the coming months, and no doubt you’ll know of others — please do mention them in the comments! Some of these are sold out while others still have openings, but I believe all of them have wait lists and will also be repeated. So make your interest known to them!

Slow Fashion Retreat / Saco, Maine / July 22-27, 2018
Launched by Samantha Lindgren of A Gathering of Stitches last summer, this was the first one I heard of. Sam organizes 30 students into smaller groups that rotate between in-depth classes taught by Cal Patch (garment sewing), Katrina Rodabaugh (mending) and Jessica Lewis Stevens (dyeing), so everyone gets to learn everything. There’s also a clothing swap, guest speakers and more. Katrina says, “It’s held in a summer camp venue in Saco, Maine … we have a private classroom that’s literally across the street from the ocean.”

Slow Textiles Retreat / Hudson Valley, New York / September 21-23, 2018
Katrina and fellow dyer Sasha Duerr hosted a retreat last fall, which they’re repeating this year in Katrina’s own barn-studio. This one is more intimate, at 12 guests, and the focus is on foraging for and working with natural dye plants as well as incorporating dyeing and stitching/mending into a slow-fashion practice. In other words, a serious consideration of our relationship to the textiles we wear and how to make it as meaningful and long-lasting as possible.

A Study in Slow Fashion / Oceana County, Michigan / August 23-27, 2018
This will be the first retreat from newly formed Kinship, and will explore various aspects of building a handmade wardrobe, all in a gorgeous yurt in rustic Western Michigan.

New England Fiber Arts Summit / Wing & A Prayer Farm, Vermont / Spring 2019
Tammy White has been hosting small-scale gatherings on her beautiful Vermont fiber farm the past few seasons and has one in the works for next year that’s slow-fashion-centric, with an incredible lineup of teachers, but that’s not quite public knowledge yet. So I’m just giving you a heads-up on this one! Watch @wingandaprayerfarm for further news.

I’ve been invited to attend or guest/speak/teach at a few of these and have yet to be able to make it, but I hope one day my schedule and a gem of a retreat like this will line up!

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PREVIOUSLY in Craftlands: Lost and found at Stitches West

Photos courtesy of Katrina Rodabaugh