African Fabric Lady

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/05/07/world/0507-KENYA_8.html

I have just listed  a collection of 14 different kente style prints at www.africanfabricsales.com.  The block in the upper right shows two designs as does the leftmost block on the row up from the bottom.  Each collection consists of one fat quarter yard sized piece of each design for a total of 3 1/2 yards of fabric. The upper photo shows the fabric under indoor daylight conditions, and the lower shows the same fabric with a flash.    The actuals colors are somewhat in between.

This letter just came in, and I thought I’d like to share it with you all as well as my response.

Hi,

I am working with on developing garments with African refugee woman in New Zealand. I am interested in applying traditional fabric printing methods. Are there any that are reasonably simple and don’t need a lot of special equipment that you could recommend?

Thanks, Kareen

Hi Kareen,
Thanks for your letter and for undertaking your project.  When I first started in the African fabric business I was financially able to travel to Africa each year and the only fabric I purchased for resale was the lovely hand-decorated bound resist damask–simply glorious tie & dye designs of all sorts and varieties and colors.  Tie & dye is a simple process that is indigenous to many areas of the world and is suitable to designers at all skill levels.  I’m certain it would be a good place for you to start with your group of women.

The  images above show two examples of very different tie & dye techniques.  More designs can be seen at the Indigo post.  The first is done by folding and binding and then dipping the edges, the second by scrunching the cloth lightly, tying it off, and then pouring, spattering or dipping the cloth into the various colors of dye.  They take some practice to develop skill & dexterity, but what doesn’t?

One need only have cloth, string, and dye to produce the designs as well as kettles or barrels in which to do the actual dyeing and rinsing and clothes lines over which to dry the fabrics.  Adequate water for rinsing is also necessary in order to wash out the excess dye after the fabrics are dipped.

Basically, one binds up the fabric in one manner or another and immerses it in the dye.  The areas that are bound will resist the dye while the other parts of the cloth accept the color.  I think that 100% cotton fabric in white or another pale color is the best to use, but I’ve even seen printed fabrics over-dyed in bound resist designs that have been tremendously exciting.  While professional grade aniline dyes are the best, packaged dyes from the supermarket can also be used.

There are many wonderful books that describe the variety of binding techniques and they are probably available at arts & crafts stores near to you.  Ask for a good general text of tie & dye designs.   If you cannot find any there may I recommend Dharma Trading Company in California, which has all manner of good books and other dye supplies.  Their staff is very well informed about the books and the products you will need.  http://www.dharmatrading.com/

Good Luck Kareen, and please, send us some digital photos of you and your group as well as some of the fabrics, once you get started start dyeing and we’ll be happy to share them around cyberspace.

Isa2

Another nice article at this weblog…. http://thewrendesign.com/2008/07/10/the-story-behind-african-wax-print-cloth/

Some very informative comments too. Following some links and then getting busy with the Google brought up this factory description:

http://www.abcwax.co.uk/history.htm

Photo from Taipei Times AFP

An interesting article in the Taipei Times… http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2009/04/13/2003440913

Vlisco does make an outstanding fabric.  It’s a bit pricier than some of the others, but as they said in the article, it lasts 15 years and is colorfast.  All that said, I did find it interesting that Vlisco has 500 designers and not one of them is African.  One might think that with all the Africans living in Europe Vlisco might be able to find one person with fabric design skills.

Anyway, the article tells a little about this 164 year old factory and its history of producing for the African market.

Greetings All

I’m just thrilled to report that the most recent “African” wax and printed fabric shipments have arrived and that these 100% cotton cloths are every bit as wonderful as I had hoped.  Many have amazing color combinations and such dynamic designs from the recognizeably floral and geometric, to more abstracted arrangements that seem to have something biological somewhere in their origins. They are being processed to appear at www.africanfabricsales.com, but here are a few previews…

The new “gold” or metallic prints are exotic in appearance, n’est ce pas?  Because of the relatively small touches of the plasticized “gold” you will find that the drape is not affected and this textile will be useful as garment fabric for African style clothing or any other fashion statement.  Just remember that where the fabric brushes against itself, as where sleeves meet the body of a shirt, the “gold” may rub off sooner than elsewhere on the fabric.  These prints will also add a nice touch of bling into quilting or wall hanging projects.  Some of you incorporate fabric into Fine Arts collage projects, and you may find that using something like a wheat flour paste rather than a white glue has less of an effect on the fabric.  Just remember if you are pressing your work with an iron to work from the back side.

This is the only new “Kente” print added to the AfricanFabricSales collection at this time.   These designs call to mind the wonderful hand-woven traditional Kente cloths, long considered prestigious and originally reserved for the royalty and nobility.  Watch for a quilter’s variety pack of up to 15 different designs in the near future. These 1/8 yard cuts will be useful for incorporation into other pieced projects or a simple Kente-style print sampler.

The wax designs take my breath away.  There are many London and Dutch products among the new additions, which means the fabric is more densely densely woven and supple with little size or filler than you may find to be the case with some fabrics manufactured on the African continent.  The cloths are a pleasure to work with for their “hand” and uniformity of quality throughout the design and manufacturing process.  Eminently suitable for fashion couture whether African or other, and for all quilting, wall hanging or fiber art projects.  WOW Factor is high on these items.

Look for the items featured here to appear at my webstore over the next couple of days.  I’d love to hear your responses to the fabrics shown here.  Enjoy these lovely days of early spring.

Isa2

Did you notice above that there is a new Page?  A gallery of My Paintings of Africa.  I’ll be adding to it…..

Photo Credit:  Lucas Jackson/Reuters

See this article in the New York Times during Fashion Week:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/fashion/15web-fashion.html?ref=fashion

I thought you might find this article interesting. It concerns the desire to preserve traditional cultural clothing, called cloth in Ghana, which is rapidly being overtaken by Western Fashion…  The photo is found at Africancraft.com which features contemporary African textile artists.

CNC ORGANIZES CLOTH WEARING CLINIC

The Center for National Culture (CNC), in collaboration with the Asante Akim North Municipal Assembly, has organised a cloth-wearing Clinic, at the Konongo Assembly Hall, for heads of departments, agencies and institutions.

Nana Kwadwo Nketia, a Resource Person from the Centre for National Culture, Kumasi, taught participants how to wear their cloths for the various occasions.

Nana Nketia mentioned different types of cloth wearing such as “Konfanko Akyemfo, Asikafoambantem, Me wë me biribi di, Dwabeng Anantuo, Ako Dua, and many more. He advised Ghanaians to let culture reflect in our national development agenda.

Nana Nketia suggested the study of culture in our schools, saying an Act of Parliament to enforce this, would be in the right direction.

The Municipal Cultural Officer of the Asante Akim North District Assembly, Mr. Kofi Obeng Onyina, noted that Ghanaian culture was dwindling, due to cultural adulteration westernisation and urbanisation, hence the need for cultural rejuvenation to promote, create and sustain the positive values.

He assured such clinics would be organised periodically, to educate the citizenry on some of the cultural values, and help maintain unique cultural identity and values as tools for preservation, exhibition, and enhancement of our national heritage and economic development.

The Cultural Officer disclosed that the Municipal Assembly had released a land at Nyaboo, for the siting of the cultural village, where the youth would be trained in the Ghanaian culture.

Mr. Obeng Onyina advised the people to keep their environment clean, because it formed part of our cultural heritage.

He urged the youth to desist from indecent dressing, saying it was not of Ghanaian culture for the youth, especially girls, to expose certain parts of their bodies in public.

The Principal Personnel Officer in the Asante Akim North Municipality, Mr. Emmanuel Kobi, thanked the organisers of the programme, which he said, was educative.”

For more information on Kente Cloth, one of Ghana’s traditional cloths, see this article.

Those of you who have visited my webstore, www.africanfabricsales.com, may have taken the time to browse the appliqué patterns department. Perhaps you have wondered about the woman who originates these designs. With her permission, I will share a brief biography of her efforts.

What was to become SewFabulous grew out of a collaboration between Jeffie Johnson and her mother while they were living in Michigan in 1987. They sold American-made quilts and filled custom orders for quilts prior to adding such items as ethnic clothing, hats, and household items such as napkins, place mats, and Xmas tree skirts to their product line, products they subsequently discontinued in 1992 when SewFabulous was founded.

In 1998, they added African Fancy Print fabrics and applique patterns from the BEGINNINGS Co. with designs by Billie J. Mills, continued to sell their own quilts and quilts from a company called American Quilts on their first website link and by mail order catalog. (That’s around the time when I first encountered them!)

In 2000 SEW FABULOUS re-located to Texas from Michigan and in 2002 they launched their own e-commerce website and web address: www.sewfabulous.com. In 2003 they began to design their own applique pattern product line.

As of 2008 they have about 50 applique and quilt patterns with more to come. They no longer sell African Fancy prints fabrics. SewFabulous participated in the Houston Quilt Festival in 2008 plan on being there next year.

My webstore www.africanfabricsales.com sells 19 of their designs. We wish them well in their product development and distribution and we hope that you will try out some of their wonderful designs.