ikat

Recently we visited the vibrant little town of Bishop’s Castle, in Shropshire, as part of our holiday. We have been there before whilst walking the Shropshire Hills. On that occasion we stayed in a medieval burgage house, built in the 15th century, and it was the higgledy-piggledy charms of that house that lured us back (as well as the two small breweries!)

Bishop’s Castle has escaped the town planning chaos so prevalent in England during the last part of the twentieth century, and survives as an independent minded, spirited little town, acting as both  the centre of a dispersed farming community and a thriving artistic population. The High Street has almost no national chain shops-just a wide variety of local outlets, including an excellent textile store and a fine craft bookshop.

It was in the textile shop- Textile Techniques, that I bought the piece of cotton and silk ikat fabric shown here. For the longest time I have been contemplating making a textile hanging for the head of our bed. We have no headboard and I wanted to make something to function as one. Several ideas have occurred to me over the last couple of years, but when I saw this fabric I knew I had found the fabric I was looking for.

It is made on the island of Bali in small home workshops, and has a shimmer to the surface from where the silk threads are woven over the cotton ones. It is a true ikat-the threads being bound and dyed before weaving, not printed.

There were several designs to choose from-it was very difficult- and there are  more on the website. I also notice that amongst the unique items listed, there is some exquisite silk ikat from  Uzbek weavers living in Afghanistan. I really, really want a length of it-but it is expensive and I don’t really have a project for it. Yet.

I also bought some beautiful indigo stitched fabric from south west China-but I will save that for another post. The sharp eyed amongst you may have noticed some random Flickr pictures on the site too. They are part of my new adventure, which I will also post about soon. A new voyage into unknown waters,although the charts are familiar, to keep the nautical theme going.