Ikat
絣 / ancient– / Technique / Textile Traditions
A technique in which the threads are bound and dyed before weaving, calculated so that the pattern appears only once the cloth is woven. A slight shift of the threads blurs the outline, and that wavering is the fingerprint of ikat. Design and chance live in the same process.
Pattern edges where the outline bleeds / Warp and weft dyed separately / Calculated placement of color / Wavering caused by shifts in the weave
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Making the outline of a pattern deliberately indistinct · Making the weaving process itself a condition of the design
- Type
- Use simple, large letterforms that hold up against the bleed.
- Composition
- Derive the repeat unit backwards from the width of the cloth.
- Material
- Dye at the thread stage and weave without correcting the shift.
- Caution
- Imitating the bleed in print will not produce the history of the thread. The order of the process is the meaning of the pattern.
- Further study
- The difference between warp ikat, weft ikat and double ikat / The Indonesian, Central Asian and Japanese lineages / Its modernization in meisen