Indigo Ikat

When I was quilting I fell in love with Japanese fabrics. One of my “finds” was a length of indigo ikat that now hangs in my living room. This particular piece was the design of the “second son”; an engineer who left and then returned to the family business. He found that his mathematical training was very important when it came to figuring out how and where to dye the threads.

"In making ikat (meaning 'tie-and-resist' in Indonesian and called 'kasuri' in Japanese), the threads are arranged in bundles and dyed before weaving. Designated spots in the individual bundles are made to resist the dyes by wrapping with various dye-resistant materials. These bundles may be dyed several times, with more wraps added at each stage, similar to the batik process. The bundles are then opened and hand-woven into the intended pattern. The results are a warp or weft that produces a veiled pattern. Due to a slight bleeding of the dyes, patterns created by this technique have a character of softness and an unusual effect which blends with the fabric texture."