About
Welcome to this mesmerizing saga of traditional designs over hand-block-printed fabrics popularly known as Sanganer-Bagru prints in India. The hand-crafted, hand-printed, hand-dyed, hand-processed, they sustain to this day facing strange challenge in fast changing modern techniques in textile sector.
For royals and temples: Such fabric has been in use by the royals as well as for deities, devotees and people. Flowers, petals, butterflies, birds, animals, etc., are observed in nature by artists and illustrated for making wooden-blocks to print fabrics with Natural Dyes. Be careful to have natural-dyes stuff only.
Dying: The fabric is dyed in cool water using ‘harda’ powder, used as a primer. It is to increase the colour absorbing capabilities of the fabric. The fabric needs to lay flat and dry in the sunlight. 
Ingredients: These are the most significant components of hand-block-printing and must deserve utmost attention for today’s buyers to really understand intricacies of this traditional process. Natural plants, their leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, barks, roots, etc., are the basic ingredients to make the dyes. Minerals like Prussian blue, red ochre and ultramarine blue are also mixed in dyes. Prominent dyes and their ingredients are:
- Lac gives reddish shades with tin mordant and purplish shades with copper mordant.
- Harda is prepared from a wild fruit. It yields yellow and grey shades.
- Indigo Blue is from leaves of Indigoferra tinctoria.
- Himalayan Rhubard is prepared from a Himalayan shrub.
- Kamama Dye is extracted from the deposit on the flowers of the Kamala tree.
- Manjuphal is prepared from the nut galls of Manjuphal tree.
- Catechu (Katha) is extracted from the bark of a popular tree producing ‘katha” (used in betel-chewing).
- Pomegranate (Anaar) dye is extracted from Anar fruit.
- Madder dye is extracted from root bark of the madder tree.
- Walnut (Akhrot), its bark is used for making dye.
- Imli dye is extracted from leaves and fruit of this huge tree.
- Arjun dye is extracted from bark of the Arjuna tree.
- Dhaura ka Phool dye is extracted from flower of the Dhaura tree.
- Mordants are used to improve the take-up quality of the fibre and help improve colour and light fastness.
Let us visit the diverse prints displayed in this web site.
Sanganer: Traditional Sanganeri prints are usually on a white or pastel colour background and are famous for its artistry and intricacy of designs. Floral cones and sprays are scattered within symmetrical borders. Experimental geometrical designs are also in use. Folk designs receive prominent space.
Bagru: It is famous for its red and iron black colours and the ground is dyed in Indigo blue, green and black. Dabu textile hand block printing (mud resist) is done mainly at Bagru.
Tie-die: Tie-and-Dye another technique and is a highly skilled art to produce Laharia, Bandhani and Chunari. Jaipur is the renowned place to produce them. The fabric is tied into small points with threads. When the fabric is dyed, the knitted points remain un-dyed. These un-dyed points along with a dyed portion produce a unique appeal.
Screen-prints: Screen-printing is a new addition in this sector though not traditional and can be difficult to be distinquished from block-prints. It is of very inferior quality, uses chemical dyes which lose colours and fade away. It is not environment friendly though rather cheap. Buyers need to be very careful as to what they are offered, often screen-prints in name of hand-block-prints.
Blocks: It is a piece of flat wood. The designs are etched on one side of this wooden block. It has a handle on other side with which the block is dipped in dyes and applied over fabric to leave the designs over the cloth.
Welcome to know more about this heritage-craft being offered to desirous buyers from this self-employed female-in-business to survive on her own.