Textile tours - Indian cotton fabric

Where is Orissa - textile tours destination?

Orissa is an Indian state located on the eastern coast and is a brilliant destination for textile tours. Its landscape is mostly vast mountain ranges with broad rivers flowing between the valleys. The beautiful coastal plain lies on the east of the state hosting the largest coastal lagoon in India and the second largest coastal lagoon in the world. Orissa is also one of the locations Colouricious Holidays offer as a textile tours hotspot. It"s rich in gorgeous fabrics made by hand.

People of Orissa

In spite of being rural, people of Orissa, have still retained India"s earliest civilization in its pristine form by keeping their traditional values alive in the countless thousands of villages in the country side. Of all the states of India, Orissa has the largest number of tribes, as many as 62 that constitute an impressive 24 percent of the total population of the state. These tribes mainly inhabit the Eastern Ghats hill range that runs in the north-south direction.

Subsistence oriented economy of the tribes here is based on food gathering, hunting and fishing, thus, revolving around forests. While farming, they make use of a very simple technology and a simple division of labor often limited to the immediate family. But they lose out because their holdings are small and unproductive, lacking irrigation facility due to a hilly and undulating terrain.

Many tribes practice shifting cultivation or Podu Chasa, also known as slash and burn. They select a plot of land on a mountain slope, slash down all the trees and bushes and burn them to ashes. Spreading the ashes evenly over the land, they wait for the rains before planting their crops. Due to cultivation for two or three seasons on one plot of land the soil gets depleted and the tribes move on. It is a way of life for them.

Textiles tours of Orissa

The beautiful variety of unusual fabrics and vibrant textile colours all

over India make this a number 1 destination to visit on textile tours for textile lovers. Orissa is home to and famous for its silk ikat weaves. This unique technique is known as tie and dye (Bandha) and is a very intricate process. It takes extraordinary precision with the predetermined design and colour gradually appearing as dyed threads are woven together. Click here (http://gaatha.com/cotton-weaves-of-orissa/) to delve deeper and learn more about the wonderful cotton weaves of Orissa.

Thousands of weavers are inhabited in remote villages living with age old traditions, creating superb workmanship on silk, cotton, tusser fabrics.

On a colouricious holiday to Orissa textile tours, you can expect to experience saree weaving, basket weaving, Dokhra metal art, pottery, stone carving and palm leaf painting, just some of the crafts to get involved with at these remote villages.

Orissa Cuisine

With a simple yet delicious cuisine, Orissa follows a food pattern that is somewhat similar to the neighboring states. Rice, the staple food is paired with vegetables.Due to their deeply religious culture, most of Oriya people practice vegetarianism. But a significant proportion of population yet relishes fish and other sea food delicacies like prawns, crabs and lobsters that are found in plenty at the vast coastline of the state. Cooked with little or absolutely no oil, Oriya food has a less calorific value.
Along with curd and coconut milk, people are very fond of sweets as well. The curd here is rich and creamy and gives the succulent flesh an additional flavor. Not only the seafood but yams, brinjals and pumpkins are also liberally used in curd with mustard seeds giving the whole preparation that extra zing. Pithas are also very popular food items here. These are small cakes both sweet and savory in taste. Chhenapodapitha, the caramelized custard-like dessert is also very popular not only with the locals but with the tourists also.

Want to join us on a holiday?

Colouricious Holidays have lots of different holidays exploring India, Japan, Bhutan and Uzbekistan. We will be expanding this all the time with more

destinations and places to go. If you would like to join us on one of our wonderful cultural, arts and crafts holidays visit our website where you will be able to read all about the holidays we offer and you can reserve your place.

We look forward to seeing you on a Colouricious Holiday!

www.colouriciousholidays.com (https://colouriciousholidays.com/product/textile-tour-tribal-art-of-orissa/)

Travel, Explore, Be Happy!

Bagru Block Printing

Bagru Block Printing

Bagru is a small village located near Jaipur, the capital City of Rajasthan. It"s home to the Chippa community who have been practicing a unique style of printing for more than 350 years. Colouricious holidays visited Bagru, running Bagru block printing workshops, working with traditional printers and helping support this ancient craft which faces threat from globalisation.

Bagru Block Printing Process

The traditional Bagru printing process can be described as follows:

Scouring- locally called ‘Hari Sarana’
The fabric that comes from mills of handloom sector contains natural and added impurities such as starch, oil and dust. To get goods and even penetration of colours, the fabric is boiled with soap and desizing agents. Traditionally cow dung was used for scouring. Cow dung contains a lot of alkali, Cow dung and water are mixed together and the cloth (running cloth ‘than’cut in required length) is then left dipped in that paste overnight. The process of washing is a long one, generally carried out by the ladies. The next day, the clothes are washed and spread on large open grounds. Before the clothes dry completely, more water is sprinkled on them and thus they are made wet again. This process of sprinkling water and drying is repeated 5-6 times a day. This procedure is carried out unit the cloth becomes white and bright. Generally, as per requirement, this process in done for 3 to 6 days. After this the cloth is washed with pure water. Since it is tedious and time consuming, soaps have replaced the cow dung in this process.

Tannin- locally called ‘Peela Karana’
‘Harda’Washed fabric is treated with myrobalan (harda) which contains tannic acid. Tannic acid attracts the mordants, which are applied with hand woodblock. ‘Harda’ powder is mixed with water, and the cloth is submerged in it, squeezed and dried flat on the ground. Once the fabric is dried, it is folded and beaten with a wooden mallet to remove excess ‘harda’ powder and open up the fiber to accept the dye. This process in known as ‘peela karna’. The tannic acid of  myrobalam (harda) forms black colour with ferrous ( syahee )which is traditionally made by reaction of old rusted horse shoe nails with jaggery.

Printing (mordanting)- locally called ‘chapai’
The fabric is printed with two mordant- ferrous (‘syahee’) made out of rusted horse shoe nails, and alum (‘begar’). Usually ferrous is printed with the outline block (‘rekh’). As it immediately shows a black impression, it is easy for another printer to place the filler block (‘datta’) with beggar or alum. The background block (Gudh’) comes later.

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Ageing-locally called ‘Sukhai’
The printed fabric is left hanging at the printing areas for at least three-four days so that the prints(mordant paste) penetrates into the fiber structure. Longer the ageing better is the result.

Washing- locally called ‘Dhulai’
The printed fabric is washed in running water. It is important to understand the need of running/flowing water. While washing the printed fabric in running water the excess mordants come out and get washed away with the flow of water without getting stuck back to the cloth. Water shortage has forced the printers to cut short this process due to which, the colors do not get fixed up properly and later “bleed” and people think that natural dyes are not fast.

Dyeing (fixing of color) - locally called ‘Ghan Rangai’
Dyeing is a process in which the dye reacts with two mordants at two different locations on the same print giving two different shades of colors. As mentioned earlier ‘alizarin’ is used as the dye throughout Rajasthan. The colours obtained in conjunction with the two mordants are red (with alum) and block (with ferrous). Dyeing is carried out in large copper vessels (‘tambri’) which are heated by wood fire. Alizarin is filled in small cloth-bags (‘potali’) and dipped in the vessel. The quantity of alizarin dye is calculated by the experienced dyer. ‘Dhawadi phool’, a local flower is boiled along with alizarin to avoid patches and staining. Once the dyed fabric is ready (usually it takes half-an-hour), it is taken out of the copper vessel and left on the ground for drying.

Sun-bleaching- locally called ‘Tapai’

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Alizarin often”over dyes” the unprinted area giving an off-white or yellow tinge all over the fabric which makes the print look dull. In order to make the ground look ‘white’ again the fabric is sun-bleached. In this process the fabric is laid flat on a river bed, a mild solution of cow dung and water is sprinkled over the fabric. This process is repeated again when the fabric is dried. The interaction of alkali (of cow dung) and thermal heat (sun ray) bleach the ground color making it look white again. Sometimes this process in carried out before the tannin (‘harda’) treatment but due to shortage of water this process is cut short and these days the ‘off- white’ color of the background has become a part of natural dyeing process.

 



Colouricious Holidays - Bagru Block Printing Workshops

Colouricious holidays offer fantastic tours of India Japan and Bhutan and Uzbekistan where you can design your own fabrics, try out different printing techniques and take part in the wonderful Bagru block printing process. Please visit www.colourlouriciousholidays.com to find out more.

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Do you know where  Bagru actually is? Check it out on the world map!