Exploring the connections between two iconic dyes and the story of William Gatty and his home; Elmfield Hall in Accrington.
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These panels from Indonesia or Borneo show the fourteen stages of the batik method required to make this relatively simple design of a beetle using blue and brown dyes. A more detailed design and wider range of colours would add many more steps to the process and require even more patience and skill to create. […]
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This intricately patterned sarong from Indonesia is a beautiful example of the batik method. The complex design features birds, spiders, beetles and other insects worked in shades of deep blue and brown. Each colour would require a new layer of wax to be laid over the relevant sections of fabric, dyed, then washed free of […]
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This commercial sample was designed and manufactured in Lancashire using industrial printing processes to closely imitate the effect of a traditional, hand worked batik or wax resist dyeing. The design features a simple colour palette with geometric patterns as the backdrop for large and graphic fish motifs. Resist-dyeing is an ancient process and flourished in […]
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Sleeve bands were decorative cuffs and would have decorated the bottom edges of the sleeves on a traditional robe. They often featured designs that were a near perfect mirror image of one another so that when the hands were clasped in front of the body and tucked slightly into the opposite sleeve, the designs would […]
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Sleeve bands were decorative cuffs and would have decorated the bottom edges of the sleeves on a traditional robe. They often featured designs that were a near perfect mirror image of one another so that when the hands were clasped in front of the body and tucked slightly into the opposite sleeve, the designs would […]
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This adire cloth was produced in Ibadan, Nigeria, and uses cassava starch paste as a resist to create the pattern using indigo dye. The technique is similar to other resist techniques such as batik, but using cassava starch instead of wax. This sample is now held in the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection but was originally collected […]
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Panel of laid work embroidery with a design of peacocks and an urn of flowers, worked by Rachel Kay Shuttleworth in 1921. This framed panel of embroidery is worked in a technique known as laid work where long stitches are laid down first to fill in the shapes and then secured with smaller couching stitches […]
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