Traditionally, this village used only a rich blue dye made from a plant, so they are most famous for their blue and white designs.
When we came into the courtyard of one of the families that makes and sells the cloth, there were three aunties (or grannies, as I often call them) sitting in the center on low stools, bent over their work and chatting with one another. The Lindens have a relationship with this family, so they were very welcoming, all smiles, gracious enough to let us snap endless photos.
In this process, a design is transferred to the white cloth through a stencil. The aunties then fold and stitch the cloth in very precise ways, using a running stitch and leaving long thread ends. Next, they pull on those thread ends to gather each design tightly. Lastly, they wrap the thread around each little section until the cloth is covered with tiny, tightly- bound peaks. A 4x4 foot piece of cloth could be as small as 1x1 foot by the time it is all gathered and tied.
The cloth is placed into water over a fire and heated until it reaches just the right temperature (which they determine just by looking at it - no thermometer necessary). The dye is poured in and the cloth pieces stirred around for a while. They remove the cloth and hang it to dry. You can imagine that it takes quite a while with so much of the cloth being tightly bound, but maybe not as long as you would think since it is very sunny and extremely dry here.
I had the chance to make a little tie dye piece of my own. Boy, did that increase my appreciation of what the aunties were doing! The cloth is a little hard to pierce, the needles are well-used and catch a little on the fabric, and the thread, because it has to be very strong, has a lot of drag on it. After finishing the fold-and-stitch stage, I started gathering and wrapping. Clearly it was going to take me a month to finish this project! Cloth in hand, I went over to the aunties and one of them graciously set down her work and tackled mine.
Oh the bliss of getting to sit close and watch her work! Her hands were strong and nimble, and tough as leather after doing this work for more than 50 years. She could look away from her work regularly, doing it by feel as much as by sight. In no time, she had finished. (I was impressed, but disappointed, by her speed; I wanted to sit there and bask in the glow of the aunties a little longer)!
The village is trying to maintain this traditional art. They begin teaching the girls at around age 8, but the prognosis is not good. Very few young people practice it because they find it to be too tedious and boring.
Every day I feel that I am seeing things that are in the process of disappearing. Even in the six years since I have been here, things have become more modern. Some of that is good, as they are finding easier ways to do their daily tasks, but much of it is simply a result of greater access to outside influences; globalization is leading to homogenization.
So, while I can, I am going to soak up the auntie bliss.
