Textile dyeing and printing activity has been our family business for generations. The workmanship of Hand Dying and Printing is an example of the laborious and intricate process used since ages in India. It is this skill of generation which we use to produce our range of exclusive scarves and stoles. Designs and colors can be produced as per customers specification on specified silk fabrics.

Hand Pot Dyeing
Hand Block Printing
Discharge Printing
Manual Screen printing

Hand-block printing is a slow operation involving lot of labour. A separate block is required for each colour in the finished design. Generally the blocks are made of hard wood and designs are engraved on it . Sometimes metal may be used to reinforce parts of the design. The size and shape of the block vary according to the width of the cloth to be printed. Larger the block, more difficult for the printer to adjust the space.

The wooden block with intricately carved designs.

The block by block printing work in progress.

The printing tables are generally very large and heavily built, and are covered with woolen blankets which is resilient or elastic in nature, so that it yields when blocks are printed.

The prepared cloth for printing is first fixed to the printing table using pins. Care is taken to see that the cloth is evenly fixed duly stretched so that no wrinkles are present on the surface. The printer charges the face of the block evenly with the paste and then fixes the block from one end of the fabric and ensures that a clear impression of the design is transferred to the fabric. It is important that the first row of impressions are at right angles across the width of the fabric, otherwise the repeats would gradually run off the edge of the cloth at one side and tend to approach the cloth from the other side.

After printing the prints are dried at mild conditions to remove moisture applied from the print paste. The fabric is then steamed under pressure. Steaming is normally extended from 60-180 minutes to fix acid and metal complex dyes. After steaming the printed material is rinsed in cold water followed by a soaping treatment using appropriate detergent.

Discharge printing is the most popular method used extensively for silk printing. It is a part of the process of Hand Block printing. It is estimated that over 50 per cent of silk fabrics is printed in this method. In the discharge style of printing, the fabric must first be dyed with suitable dyes that can be destroyed by selected discharging agents. The discharge paste is printed onto the dyed fabric and usually during subsequent steaming, the dye in the pattern area is discharged. A white discharge is thus produced. It is also possible to add a discharge resistant dye (illuminating dye) to the discharge print paste to produce a coloured discharge. The area of dyed fabric surrounding the pattern area is described as the 'ground', because it is the background from which the illuminating colour shines. The use of the term 'ground' is naturally extended to describe the dyed fabric before printing .

The most important of the many valuable features of discharge style of printing is that it provides the means to produce a white and coloured pattern on dyed ground. It is also possible to obtain by dyeing a depth, fullness and richness of colour altogether unapproachable by any process of printing.

Silk screening is a printing method used by artist and professional printers. The process is closely similar to ordinary stenciling .

Artists' fine art prints made by the silk screen process are called Serigraphs. Serigraphs are made by forcing ink through a tightly strentched silk screen. Parts of the silk screen - the area which will not be printed are coated with a scaler, such as shellac to prevent ink from passing through . The screen therefore acts as a stencil. In making serigraphs of many colours, printers need a stencil for each colour to be used in the design.

Screen printing is relatively simple method which is in fact an extension of stencilling. Printing is carried out on a flat solid table covered with a layer of resilient felt and washable blanket. Fabric movement or shrinkage must be avoided during printing in order to maintain even registration of the pattern. The fabric to be printed is laid on the table and stuck to the blanket directly.

The printing process consists of forcing the print paste through the open areas of the screen with a flexible synthetic rubber blade known as squeegee. The rubber blade which is contained in a wooden or metal support is drawn steadily across the screen at constant angle and pressure. If the screen is too wide to allow one operator to reach all the way across it, two operators may work together, one on either side of the table. The pressure exerted by each must be as similar as possible in order to obtain an even shade.