Keeping and Eye on Ikat

The trend for Ikat is nothing new, both in terms of it’s origins, and in terms of it’s resurgence in the designs of current fashion and styles. It’s longevity and continual appearance in interior and fashion magazines is possibly due to the fact that, whilst it is distinctive in it’s style and bold patterns, it will sit alongside most styles and fashions quite comfortably. Whether you are looking for a bohemian, tribal, or clean modern feel you can generally find something to suit.

Call me a little nosey, but I just love to know how something is created in it’s true form….and as a result of my snooping I stumbled upon this beautiful photo essay “Silk to Ikat. Artisans Along the Silk Road. Central Asia, Uzbekistan” by photographer Edward Addeo, which also won a place in the 2012 the World in Focus travel photography contest, which I though I would share (hope he does not mind), as well as a couple of ideas of how you can use at home…

The making of a traditional Ikat print is quite a process. The Ikat’s colour pattern requires that the thread be dyed before it is woven. The method, called resist-dye, involves tightly binding the thread at intervals to protect the bound section from dyeing, resulting in only selective sections of the thread being coloured. This process is applied in one of three ways: dyeing of the warp (the vertical thread stretched along the loom), the weft (the horizontal thread woven across the loom) or thedouble Ikat method, whereby both the weft and warp threads are dyed before stringing on the loom and weaving begins.