Textile Swatches: How it's made: Clamp Dye Resist fabric.

March 18, 2012

How it's made: Clamp Dye Resist fabric.

One of our new textiles, 'Colaba' from our soon to be released collection, 'Bombay Glitz' is handmade by a Clamp Dye Resist process, also called Itajime.

It basically involves making folds in the fabric and then using a carved wood shape as a resist. This wood resist needs to be placed on both sides of the folded cloth and then is held together tightly with a clamp.

Here are some images from our process-

Bringing in the muscle to tighten the clamps!

The clamped fabric is then soaked in water to make it more absorptive to the dyeing process.

It is then placed in the dye bath.

After it is removed from dyeing.

And the clamps are removed, but the fabric is still folded...

And voila! the finished product...

And here's a short video documentation.

What do you think? Do you like the result?

Here's a great book, 'Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing' if you have an interest to explore this technique. It's written by my friend and mentor, Yoshiko Wada, and Mary Kellog Rice and Jane J. Barton.