ALL ABOUT FABRICS

Twelve stages of printing and dying fabric curated by the Craft men in Kutch

Process & Tools - We learnt the process from the renowned Juned Husen Khatri

and family of Ajrakhpur. - Ajrak colors are best represented on cotton fabric.

- Only natural and vegetable dyes were used for Ajrak.

- Red color: This color comes from alum, molasses, wheat flour and fennel

- Black color: This color comes from ferrous sulfate, molasses, and millet flour. Tamarind seed powder is used to make the solution thicker

- Only wooden blocks are used in Ajrak printing

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Step 1: SaajTo prepare it for printing and dyeing, the cloth goes through various processes: soaking, washing and treatment with stem, sodium bicarbonate, castor oil, eruca sativa oil, camel dung and tamarisk or myrobalan. This process is repeated 7-9 times.

The fabric is soaked in water which has camel dung immersed in it to make the fabric soft. This also acts as a bleaching agent as it is an alkaline and helps in the printing of the fabric.

Step 2: Kasanu.

The cloth is dyed in a cold solution of myrobalan (powdered nut of the harde tree). This stage is known as kasanu. Myrobalan turns the cloth a yellow colour and works as a mordant, helping to fix the dyes. The cloth is then calendered, after which it is laid flat to dry in the hot sun.

Step 3: Khariyanu A resist of lime and gum arabic is printed on to the cloth to define the outline of the design. This is known as rekh. If the cloth is to be double sided, this stage is repeated on the reverse side of the cloth.

Step 4: Kat A paste is made by fermenting scrap iron (horse shoes, etc), jaggery (raw cane sugar) and besan (gram flour). This mixture is left to ferment which takes about one week in the hot season and two weeks during the cold season

The liquid, or “iron water” is drained off and added to tamarind seed powder. The iron and tamarind solution is thoroughly mixed, and then boiled for one hour. The resulting “iron paste” is printed on to the cloth (kat) the colour is black

Step 5: Kan and GachTamarind seed powder is mixed with alum (aluminium sulphate) and then boiled for one hour to produce a printing paste for red areas of the design.  Geru (red clay) is also used. Printing of the alum paste is known as kan.

A paste of alum, millet flour, red clay and gum arabic is printed on the cloth where there are large areas of red in the design. A resist of lime and gum arabic is also printed at this time; this combined stage is known as gach.

Sawdust is sprinkled on to the printed areas to protect the design from smudging. After gach printing, the cloth is left to dry naturally for several days. The paste used for gach printing is made from local clay which is filtered through muslin, millet flour and alum. The millet flour is boiled and then red clay and alum are added and the paste is filtered to achieve the required consistency for printing.

Step 6: Bodaw The cloth is dyed in indigo

In order to establish an indigo vat, natural indigo, sagikhar (a salt), lime, casiatora (seed from kuwada plant) and water are mixed in a clay vessel, plastic barrel or concrete vat. The dye bath is left to ferment for about one month; sometimes jaggery is added to this to aid fermentation. It is ready to use when the colour of the solution is yellowish (best quality) or greenish (medium quality).

With an established indigo vat, indigo, jaggery and water are added as required to maintain the strength of the dye colour. 

Step 7: Vichharnu

Cloth is washed in running water and laid flat to dry in the sun. This stage is known as vichharnu

Step 8: Raag Traditionally, this stage is either madder or al dyeing, depending on the availability of the dye stuffs. The cloth is boiled in a solution of tamarix (from the dhawri tree) and either madder root powder or al root powder and is then washed and sun-dried. In some cases alizarin (synthetic madder) may be used.

At this stage (rang), the red and black areas of the design develop and the resist areas are revealed as white.

Alternative dyes that may be used at this stage in place of madder are rhubarb root and henna, which the Khatris have recently introduced.

Step 9: Gach

Gach (alum printing) is repeated. The cloth is left for several days after this. This stage is known as minakari (from Persian, refers to enamelling but used in Kachchh to mean ‘double work’).

Red dyeing by boiling in solution of madder or al root powder with lai flower (to prevent dye spreading).

Step 10: Bodaw

Second indigo dyeing (bodaw). Cloth is sun-dried.

Step 11: Vichharnu

The cloth is washed in running water and laid flat to dry in the sun. Sometimes to bleach out the madder stains, is by soaking the cloth in camel dung and sun-drying it for 3 days with regular sprinkling of water. This results in clearing the excess dye.

Step 12: RangRang stage is repeated.

If producing green ajrakh, the process is different from stage 9.

Cloth is dried flat in sun. Pomegranate skins are boiled and the resulting liquid is sprayed on to the cloth. It is then dried flat in the sun. This stage is repeated two times.

A solution of turmeric and lime is then sprayed on to the cloth

The cloth is dyed in alum solution and then washed in plain water and dried

Ingredients

Indigo

Clay

Arabic Gum Tamarix

Alizarin