In East Lombok, I visited Pringgasela village, where a busy shop sells kain [lengths of material for sarung] and other items such as scarves. Most are made from commercial thread, but I became interested in the softer colours of the vegetable dyes.
Sareh Erwin gave us a long tour of the village, visiting houses to view the dyeing and weaving process. 1,500 dyers and weavers provide products for the shop to sell. So far there are 800 looms in the village, Sareh hopes that they will soon reach 1,000 as this will be a target recognised by government.
The start of the dyeing tour: above is indigo, from the indigo flower.
This is ash, one of 3 fixers. The others are salt and calcium.
Each batch must make enough for a kain, as no two batches are exactly the same. It is up to the individual weaver to decided when the thread has reached the desired shade.
Bark from the Makassar tree makes the soft orange in my sarong below.
These tiny flowers quickly colour the fingers bright pink.
Water spinach grows in the water and makes the very popular vegetable, kankung. Climbing spinach provides green colour for the local industry.
After dipping, beating, wringing and rinsing, the final stage is drying; but all to be repeated several times over.
The greenish-grey in the foreground is from spinach, yellow is turmeric, pink is produced by the tiny pink flower and the blue is from indigo.
A thread box.
The variations in shade in just one skein.
Weaving a long cloth used by women after giving birth, to help them return to their former shape.
The commercial thread also needs to be prepared for the weaving process.
The scarf is made of commercial thread.
Dadi modelling his versatile new scarf, and some of the sarungs made of commercial-dyed threads but still in traditional patterns of the region.
0 comments:
Post a Comment