Handcrafted Rajkot ikkat silk and cotton sarees

The word ikat is from the Indonesian or Malay ‘mengikat’ which means "to tie and bind". Ikat is technique of textile embellishment that dates back to at least the seventeenth century. Ikkat is an age-old method of decorating or figuring a fabric.

Ikat is woven using a comples labor-intensive technique. Unlike forms of screen printing which use up vast quantities of water and employ the use of chemical dyes that could be toxic, Ikat has been traditionally made using only natural dyes. The term ikat is used for both the technique and the textile and uses a tie-dye process to apply a pattern on the warp or the weft threads before weaving. It is the weaving that makes the pattern then emerge. In rare forms of ikat both the warp and the weft are patterned and are then woven so that both patterns interlock. This is called double ikat.

Rajkot is a famous place for its pure silk patola saris and textile printing. Rajkot is situated in the state of Gujarat is famous for its Rajkot ikkat prints. Rajkot Cotton sarees designed with latest ikkat prints gives traditional look to special occasions. Rajkot sarees with tie and dye work are very popular. In Central Asia Ikat is known as abr, which in Persian means 'cloud-like’, because the motifs appear to float, their edges softly blending into the adjacent colours. In Malay-Indonesian, the word Ikat means to bind.

Ikat is created by drawing the designs on graph paper and the warp yarns are stretched on a frame. The number of threads required is calculated according to the design which must remain constant till the entire weaving of the fabric. Based on the design, selected areas are bound or tied tightly with raffia so that they are able to resist the dye. Warp bundles are then dyed, producing resist patterns in the areas bound with raffia. Then selected areas are unbound. Other areas are bound, and the warp bundles immersed in a second dye bath. Then, the raffia bindings are taken off, and the warps are stretched on a loom.

There are three popular ikat weavings namely warp ikat, weft ikat and double ikat. In warp ikat the dyeing of the threads would be of the warp (lengthwise lay of threads) across which the plain weft (feed of thread woven breadth wise across the warp) is led through. In weft ikat it would be vice versa. In double ikat both the warp threads and the weft threads would be dyed separately and then woven together. Double ikat involves the process of resisting on both warp and weft and then interlacing them to form intricate yet well composed patterns.

Unnati Silks is offering good collections of handcrafted Rajkot ikat sarees. Unnati Silks has trendy designs, attractive patterns, in vivid colours and pleasing combinations in its various collections of sarees and salwars. Unnati is a one stop store for 300 + varieties of ethnic sarees and salwar kameez. Dispatch is within 24 hours of order. Free delivery & COD is provided for retail. Worldwide express shipping caters to most countries across the world.