Bandhani
Bandhani is a craft from southern Asia , in which textiles are folded, tied and dyed in order to provide them with colored and relief-like patterns. The term is derived from the Hindi word baandh , which means “to bind ”, and describes both the technique and the finished product.
Distribution and naming
This artful textile technique of binding and dyeing also found its way to China in the past and later to Japan , where this technique is called Shibori . Traces of it can also be found in various countries in Southeast Asia . This technique is also known internationally under the Malay-Indonesian name Plangi . In India , this craft is only practiced in two states, Gujarat and Rajasthan , two neighboring regions in western India.
technology
The technique used is commonly known as tying & dying . It consists of the two main processing steps, binding and dyeing.
Tying - Tying
The white, mostly unbleached fabric is folded in two layers before it is set. Two methods are currently in use, the first of which still works entirely with conventional materials: A rangara (dyer) first marks the large areas with a cord that is dipped in a washable dye solution (known in Kutch as geru ). Geru is an aqueous solution of red chalk (red ocher). Then he stamps the individual patterns with the Geru-soaked printing block. Gaps between the connection points are traced with a bamboo splinter. However, a much faster and more precise method is becoming more and more popular: You make a thin, transparent plastic template with holes in the desired design, place it on the fabric and rub it with a cloth or sponge soaked in geru , whereby the pattern is on the Subsurface.
After the design or pattern has been transferred , the fabric is distributed to women to tie it off according to the pattern. The tying is mostly done by women and girls at home. Within the khatri (work community, guild), knowledge is always passed on from mother to daughter. Depending on the material to be tied ( silk or cotton ), the yarn is selected accordingly.
The women are spread across the region in many villages. It can take two weeks to set, but it can also take up to a year, depending on the complexity of the design and the number of points to be set.
With the fabric lying loosely on the lap, the material is tied with simple cotton thread. To do this, the fabric is pushed up from below with the long, pointed fingernail of the little finger (or with the nakhalia , a ring on which a thorn sits) and the resulting fabric bead is quickly wrapped six to eight times. Then the thread is continued to the next point without cutting until all the places that should remain white are wrapped.
These ties reserve the color of the fabric, and after winding a pattern of small white rings appears, the center of which appears in the color that was last used for the dyeing. (The fabric is always dyed with the lightest color first.)
Coloring - Dying
While tying is seen as a typically female task, men are responsible for the next step, dyeing.
The tied cloth is then handed over to the master dyer . After the initial setting, the fabric is usually dyed a yellow or other light color. After rinsing, wringing out and drying, the fabric is tied in the areas that should later appear as yellow dots and then dyed in a darker color such as red or green. After the first dyeing process, new bindings and further dyeings usually follow.
After the final dye bath has been completed, the fabric is washed and, if necessary, starched. Dabs of color can be applied by hand or by using separate immersion baths during the individual dyeing processes. This technique is widespread in Rajasthan, but rarely in Gujarat. Light colors can be applied after the first yellow dyeing, before the fabric is tied for the next dyeing. You can also wind up individual white or yellow dots after the last dye bath and dye them in a stronger color such as blue.
After the final dye bath, the cloth is completely dried before it is then opened. In this way, the patterns remain on the silk for many years.
Young Indian designers , such as Kamaldeep Kaur , not only work with the two-dimensional effect of the (two-dimensional) pattern on the silk, but also with the three-dimensionality that arises from the fact that the bumps of the opened ties are retained in the silk fabric and so on a relief-like “silk landscape” emerges.