Craft inspiration for your craft projects

Craft inspiration around every corner!

Creativity is a passion to create and you won"t stop creating on this craft tour. With a different and unique craft arranged for you throughout your travels, you will learn ancient techniques that has been kept alive through generations by the creativity of others. You can apply any of these crafting skills to your own art and craft projects. It refreshing to try new thongs that you would never think to try. Take a look at only a few of the destinations that await you on a craft tour to Kerala, India. Get creative and have fun!

 

A Trip to the Vellar Craft Village

Vellar is a hamlet nestled into the rocky countryside of Thiruvananthapuram not far from Kovalam. It is one of the region’s newest craft tourism destinations, and boasts traditional handicraft stalls, modern shopping and recreational facilities and eateries of all kinds.

Having recently received an upgrade and remodelling costing more than 700 million Rs, one of its biggest draws is a large covered theatre where there is training in a variety of local handicrafts – including the use of local coconuts and coconut shells. Several governmental and government-related agencies and projects give their support in order to bring these traditional local crafts back into the public eye in the Craft Village.



 

Palm Leaf Weaving

Southern Kerala is known for its weaving and basket-making using palm leaves. Young, tender palm leaves are harvested and their ribs removed before being dried in the sun. They are used to make all manner of handicrafts, including bowls, shades, folding fans and many other ornamental and practical objects. You can learn the techniques of palm leaf weaving that have been handed down in distinct families for generations.



 

Mannar & Aranmula Bell metal crafting centres

Kerala has long been associated with traditional metalworking crafts, including iron, silver, gold and bronze, but also ‘bell metal’. Bell metal is akin to bronze, but it has a unique ratio of 78% copper to 22% tin, and is traditionally used in the region for temple bells, lamps and religious statuary.

It is heavy yet extremely durable, and is particularly prized for its ability to withstand heat and fire, which is why it is also used for cooking pots and utensils. At the bell metal crafting centres of Mannar and Aranmula, you can learn how these items and more have been crafted for generations.

 

 

 

Kanjirappilly Plantation

The Kanjirappilly region, sometimes spelled Kanjirapally, is known for its gently rolling hills and warm, pleasant weather. Naturally, this is amazing agricultural land, and it has long been the site of many sprawling plantations. Located amidst this pastoral wonder are the Kanjirappilly Plantation Bungalows. These well-appointed homes away from home are just a few hours from Cochin, and also convenient to both Periyar and Kumarakom. While we’re there, you can even tour the plantation!

 

Ayurveda & Yoga

Ayurveda is the medical tradition of ancient India. It is said that the Hindu god Dhanvantari incarnated himself as the king of historical Varanasi to teach these arts to humans for the first time. However, modern scholars suggest that the core of Ayurvedic medicine and thought goes back much farther, possibly before the rise of the Indus Valley Civilisation which predated India.

Ayurvedic practices form the core of most modern day ‘complimentary’ or ‘alternative’ medical techniques, many of which are practiced in the UK. Here, you’ll get a chance to learn about Ayurveda from traditional practitioners directly.



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Creative travel with craft workshops

Why Kerala?

Kerala is a beautiful state of India sandwiched between the emerald waters of the Lakshadweep Sea and the stunning mouthing ranges of the Western Ghats. It is noted for its famous works in metal and wood carvings and will be a focus on this craft tour. Here are some of the treats you can look forward to on this special trip.

 
 

Kutthampully handloom village

Kutthanpully (sometimes spelled Kuthanpully) is a traditional cotton weaving village in Thiruvilwamala Grama Panchayat, in Kerala. This is the source of the famous Kuthanpully Sarees, which feature such unique boarders. Almost entirely populated by the Devanga people, a Brahmin caste. Their oral history tells of weavers being assembled here 500 years ago at the behest of the Kochi Royal Family.

Kuthampully is noted for their use of the kasavu hand loom, with which they create the Kasavu Double Dhotis, Set Mundus and Veshti. Here, you’ll have the chance to learn to use this ancient weaving tool for yourselves, and learn a new (to you) way to weave.



 

 

 

 

Bee Keeping

Kerala is famous for many things, but one of the most interesting is apiculture, or bee keeping. Bees have been semi-domesticated for thousands of years, and Kerala is one of the ancient centres of this art. They even have a unique type of bee, the Trigona tripennis, AKA the Stingless Bee. Thes are not truly without a stinger, but the sting is poorly developed, and they are noticeably less aggressive than other varieties.

Colouricious has arranged a workshop where you can learn how these unique bees are kept in Kerala State, and of course taste some of the honey that is only produced here, in small batches.

 

Screw Pine Weaving

Another of Kerala’s traditional basket weaving techniques uses the leaves of the screw pine plant. This is traditionally a women’s craft, and has a history of at least 800 years in the region. The most common item woven from screw pine leaves is an ornate mat, such as might be offered to an honoured guest for sitting, or larger mats for sleeping. Other artisans specialise in making fine wall hangings with the all-natural material.
 
 
 
 
 

Coir Making

Coir (also known as ‘cocos’) is a fine, natural golden fibre which is woven into hundreds of textile and handicraft products. However, few who wear these materials outside of the region know that the soft, lustrous material they are wearing is derived from coconut husk. You will get the chance to learn how this lovely and amazingly ecologically friendly fibre is made, and just how many different things can be made from it!

 

Colouricious Holidays

Colouricious Holidays offer a organised crafting trip with crafting destinations, hotels, coaches and guides all arranged ready for your arrival. Now running for several years, many of our guests have met creative friends for life and have come back year after year! Relaxation is a key part of any holiday. We always find creative people need space to let their mind wonder. This wonderful but gentle adventure also offers yoga as a way to calm the body and mind learning from those who know it best.



To stay up to date with our creative holidays follow are newsfeed or visit our website to book a place!

Creative Holiday - Bhutan"s Textiles

A Creative Holiday to Bhutan

Do you love beautiful fabrics and sumptuous colours? If so you’re going to love the journey of exploration that Colouricious Holidays have planned for you. If you sew and love fabrics and want to embark on a journey into the heart of Bhutanese textiles then look no further. You will explore the heart of local textiles and will be taken on a journey to delight your senses on this creative holiday. You’ll be able to sample local food and culture and a variety of different crafts at local markets. Hosted by the wonderful Isha Sharma, you will be guided through Bhutan"s textile and craft hotspots. You will stay in personally selected hotels to give you maximum comfort to expand your creativity.

Creative holidays with a difference

With Colouricious Textile Holidays to Bhutan, you’re sure to get a craft holiday with a difference bringing you to destinations you’ve never been to before. You can discover hidden gems like rural villages which still do traditional crafts off the beaten track. Our local knowledge enables us to find the best traditional local craft centres which offer the highest quality materials and textiles for you to discover on your journey of a lifetime. One of these destinations is the National Institute of Zorig Chusum. It"s an arts and crafts school teaching the 13 traditional crafts of Bhutan. These include embroidery, weaving, painting, wood carving, calligraphy and sculpting to name a few. You will witness students being trained in these ancient techniques helping protect the invaluable heritage of Bhutan. It"s great way to integrate yourself into their way of life, watching locals making local crafts and being able to join in and try them for yourself!

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Discover the magic of the Bhutan Valley

Our creative holidays to Bhutan begin in London where you’ll fly to Delhi and then arrive in the sacred Paro Valley in Bhutan. This valley is considered one of the most picturesque in Bhutan with the river of Paro Chhu meandering through it"s flat fields. There is so much to see from the richly decorated shops and houses to the 155 temples and monasteries in this area dating back to the 14^th century. It"s also home to Bhutan"s iconic landmark, the Tiger’s Nest. This beautiful temple, built on a cliff face, sits 900 hundred meters above the Paro Valley. It is believed Guru Rimpoche flew on a tigress and landed in cave on the cliff face anointing this as the location to build a monastery. He mediated here for 3 years, 3 months, 3 days and 3 hours to subdue the demon tigress. It is considered the most holiest of sites as it"s believed Guru Rimpoche established Buddhism in Bhutan. The temple is built into the cliff face where you can explore the caves and walk along stairways made in the rock. There are many beautiful paintings on the walls even the scenic woodland path to approach the site is littered with prayer flags. Click here see the top attractions Part Valley has to offer.

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During your trip you’ll be introduced to Bhutanese culture and discover its sacred ancient history. You’ll discover the Buddhist religious culture and folklore.You’ll be given a tour of the beautiful textile museums and see local hand weaving in practice taking part in painting and weaving workshops. You’ll have such a wonderful time in Bhutan, discovering textiles and crafts and culture that you won’t want to leave.

Feast your eyes on Bhutan"s architecture

Be sure to bring a good camera because you won’t want to miss out on capturing the essence of Bhutan’s culture or miss the beautiful architecture and craftsmanship. You’ll see breath-taking scenery especially at Buddha point. Incredibly, it stands at 169 feet and contains 125,000 smaller Buddha"s also gilded and made of bronze. It"s one of the biggest Buddha statues in the world looking out over the Kuensel Phodrang nature park, the southern approach to the capital Thimphu. Amazingly Thimpu"s population is 100,000, so there are more Buddha"s contained in this magnificent statue than people in Bhutans capital. Buddha Dordenma was built in honour of Jigme Singye Wangchuck 60th birthday as the fourth king of Bhutan. It sits upon a beautiful decorated mediation hall. The landscape will provide an unforgettable backdrop for you to experience unspoilt forested mountains which descend into the glacial valleys giving way to evergreen paddy fields of exotic red rice.

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Unique craft and textile holidays

There’ll be lots of opportunities to bring back samples of local crafts and feast your eyes on traditional uses of textiles such as prayer flags, embroidered thankras, colourful costumes. We pride ourselves on providing a unique experience for people who want to have a creative holiday with a difference. We want to show you the very best of Bhutanese crafts and provide a textile tour which will enthral you.

Keep an eye out for our next blog to see what other wonderful activities await you on this textile holiday to Bhutan with Colouricious Holidays or visit www.colouriciousholidays.com to see the full itinerary and book a place!

Learn, create, be happy!

Kantha stitch embroidery

Orissa Textile Art

Orissa is a must go destination if you share a love for textiles. It’s home to many unique textile techniques with fabrics being produced all over the state. It is mostly famous for silk ikat weaves through the process of Bandha creating unusual patterns and vibrant colours keeping it in popular demand all over the world today. It"s fabrics are also rich in kantha stitch embroidery, a wonderful technique to embellish any of your old fabrics to create beautiful textile design projects.Kan

Kantha embroidery

One of the sensational stitching techniques seen in Orissa is Kantha embroidery. It is one of the most important textile arts in Eastern India. Like most traditional textile techniques, it is both a fine art and a household craft, and a form of personal expression for the artist.

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Origins of Kantha stitch embroidery

Kantha embroidery began 500 centuries ago in West Bengal and Orissa as a method of reusing and recycling dhotis, sarees and other pieces of clothing Bengalis were reluctant to throw away. It was a means of creating useful household items from used fine quality muslin and cotton saris. Yarn salvaged from worn clothing was used to embroider large repeating motifs and designs across whole pieces of fabric. This is a wonderful process to transform your textiles receiving world wide demand. Even Hillary Clinton feel in love with the exquisite displays of Kantha embroidery.

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What is Kantha embroidery?

Kantha embroidery is unique because of its extensive use of the running stitch (which is called ‘kantha’ locally). This is one of the basic hand stitching techniques suitable for beginners, threading the needle up from the back and then down again. Usually the stitch under the fabric should be shorter than the one above leading to the distinctive wavy wrinkled look to the fabric. Remember the closer and tighter the stitches, the stiffer the fabric will feel compared to the stitching being further apart.

Traditional Kantha embroidery involves running stitches across the whole fabric design normally in a single colour but there are various standard styles for stitching this. This is classified broadly into two categories aligned (JOD), not aligned (BEJOD). Butti is usually denotes a small motif placed throughout the fabric.

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How to apply the Kantha stitch to your craft projects

This delightful stitch can be applied to all light and medium weight fabrics although cotton and silk are best suited for this embroidery. Colouricious first bock print the fabric to create a stunning base to stitch across. You can also block print the specific motifs and design ot act as a template to trace with your stitch and acts as an fabulous embellishment. There are many different applications for Kantha. These can be categorised into a few of the below:

Lep Kantha - generation of warm and heavily padded quilts using kantha stitch.

Sujani Kantha - creating blankets or spreads for ceremonial occasions.

Baiton Kantha – using square fabric pieces stitched to produce coverings for valuable objects or as wraps for books

Oar kantha – to develop pillow covers

Archilata Kantha is used for covering mirrors

Durjani Kantha is small pieces of fabric inside of a wallet

Rumal Kantha which is used to cover plates

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Try Kantha stitch yourself!

There are so many ways to wonderfully apply this technique to create your gorgeous textile art. Just be creative as you don’t have to worry about going wrong as this embroidery is adaptable. One of its great attributes is you can keep this project going for months, not having to worry about keeping to a pattern. It is a great way of repurposing any old fabrics you have laying about along with block printing. Hand or machine washing would be adequate to maintain the longevity of the fabric and embroidery.

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Colouricious Holidays

You will witness the women in India hand sew and embellish beautiful fabric pieces used as Kantha sprees and Kantha quilts. You will enjoy the company of like-minded people enjoying a creative and inspiring textile holiday learning about different hand printing and sewing techniques that you will then explore yourselves. Visit www.colouriciousholidays.com to find out what amazing adventure you could be on next!

Learn, create, be happy!

 

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!

Metallic Print Fabric

Metallic print fabric is the answer

Creating your own fabric designs or making your own paper for craft projects needn"t be difficult. Colouricious love to experiment with metallic paints. Using wooden printing blocks, metallic print fabric can transform textiles into these beautiful collage designs below. Due to the reflective nature of the paint, it blends well with any dyed fabric generating this magical, vibrant appearance and is the best way to embellish your textiles.

 

 

 

Metallic print fabric workshops

Alternatively you can create sequential patterns, a popular printing technique adopted on the block printing colouricious holidays to Jaipur. The crafters worked with traditional block printers applying this modern twist to create their own fabulous textile designs. They got to choose from a wide range of blocks and metallic fabric paint colours.

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Metallic paint

If wooden block printing isn"t your cup of tea then don"t be afraid to get creative. Metallic paint can be used in many wonderful ways. This paint works best on natural fibres than synthetic as the paint is made from a mixture of a pigment and a glue-like binder and therefore sticks to rougher surfaces easier. The sparkle that these wonderful paints create will enhance any of your creations. Unlike fabric dye, it only requires ironing to fix the paint.

 

Metallic print fabric taken your fancy?

If you have been inspired by the creations on this page and would like to try this for yourself, visit www.colouricious.com to pick up a box of metallic paint to help get you started on your own textile designs.

 

 

Colouricious Holidays - Metallic Fabric Print

On a colouricious holiday, you can use metallic paint to design your own fabrics. There are huge variety of blocks available to print with and you are taught by Jaipur"s very own block printers in traditional workshops in remote villages. Visit www.colouriciousholidays.com to find out more about the wonderful holidays available.

Vietnam Textiles

Vietnam Textiles

There are many artistic avenues through which the Vietnamese express themselves such as silk painting, theatre, and wood carving. Below are explanations of the origins and development of a few key textiles and techniques. Vietnam textiles are beautiful.

Silk 

Vietnam textiles have been amazing for centuries, Vietnam has been silk weaving and creating beautiful embroidery. During feudal times silk was thought of as a great luxury, only worn by kings, queens and mandarins. Through out history and its dynasties, Vietnam has always had rules concerning colour, ornamentation, style and fabric of clothes worn by aristocrats. The clothes of those in power featured the royal symbols of dragons, phoenixes and tortoises.

Vietnam’s best silk is called ‘Ha Dong’ silk and comes from of Ha Tay, southwest of Hanoi in the Red River Delta. It is believed that the art of silk weaving originated here some 2,000 years ago. However it was between the 16th 18th centuries when this region’s silk industry flourished. Today, techniques and quality have changed but there are many villages that always have and still do produce silk, for example La Ca.

To produce silk, the first stage is the weaving of the cloth to make every thread uniformly in line to ensure a smooth and soft fabric. It is then soaked, washed, dried, kept with forest resin, dyed, and sun dried twice. The resin is extracted at different points of the season for different colours. This chemical free process creates beautifully shiny and durable silk.

Embroidery

All over Vietnam, its people use embroidery as a form of cultural expression. It was introduced into the northprovinces of Vietnam during the 17^th century from China, when originally silk embroidery only used five thread colours – yellow, red, green, violet and blue.

However embroidery is thought to have existed in the village of Van Lam for seven centuries. More than 75% of the population is skilled in the embroidery with lace, due to teachings being passed down through generations. Their work varies from the size of a hand to large wall hangings. Tribes like the Hmong and Dao also use their own unique intricate embroidery and braiding styles to embellish their clothing. The Hmong also use beautiful batik designs to decorate their clothing.

Applique

Applique is used by the Hmong to set apart and identify particular tribes, but was first developed as a way of story telling. Now it has developed into an art form for many communities. This ancient technique involves sewing on fabric shapes by hand to produce decorative patterns and shapes.

  

If you’d like to find out more about these techniques and get involved in the culture, Colouricious are running a textile trip to Vietnam in November 2015. If you would like to find out more, do not hesitate to visit our website or contact us below.

Vietnam Textiles

V&A Exhibition The Fabric of India

V&A Exhibition The Fabric of India

This exhibition at the V&A Museum in London is one of the most exhibitions to visit, in our opinion. Visit this exhibition to learn about the heritage and culture of Indian textiles, in what The Times newspaper refers to as dazzling craftsmanship. What is really magnificent is Tipu Sultan’s tent which is the largest item in the exhibition. Not sure about the 19th century dress embellished with beetle wings. During the last Colouricious block printing holiday to Jaipur, we did actually see a local craftsman processing these beetle wings. So that textile technique still goes on.

Come on a Colouricious Textile Holiday to India

V&A Exhibition The Fabric of India

Wax Print

Wax print or Batik originated in India. The word batik actually means ‘wax writing’.

To decorate cloth by wax print you have to cover a part of the cloth with a coat of wax and then dye the cloth. When the wax is removed the contrast between the dyed and undyed areas makes the pattern, as the waxed areas keep their original colour.
The beauty of wax print is its simplicity. Some of the best effects in batik are often achieved by chance. Batik is very popular in southern India and is an amazing way of printing fabric.

Wax print is an amazing way of textile design and you will be able to experience it up close on our Colouricious textile tour to Southern India. You will be able to try it out for yourself when you get home, and achieve some amazing results. Wax print designs come in a large range of colours and patterns and you will be amazed when you see the whole textile printing process.

You will love our Colouricious textile tour to Southern India to see wax print up close! Everyone who loves textile art will love this!

Have a look at our other textile tours, perfect for everyone who is in love with arts and crafts!

Wax Print

Weaving

Weaving is an amazing method of textile production where two sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. In India the most popular materials used are cotton and silk. Weaving can be used to make so much – rugs, dresses or even blankets!

 

Come on our Colouricious textile tour to India! You will have the chance to see some beautiful weaving of rugs and sarees, and purchase some of the most beautiful hand woven textiles! Indian rugs are amazingly designed and come in a large array of colours. You will be able to take a textile course in weaving and see first hand what it looks like to make a silk sari. You will also have the chance to buy handwoven blankets and bed linen. Southern India has a fabulous array of textiles and is any textile-lovers paradise! Weaving is an amazing method of textile production, and this is an amazing opportunity!

You will love our Colouricious textile tour to Southern India to see weaving up close! Everyone who loves textile art will love this!

Have a look at our other textile tours, perfect for everyone who is in love with arts and crafts!

Weaving