Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

During our last trip to India we hand selected quite a few beautiful vintage kantha quilts.

These quilts have large fields of colour and brilliant patchwork all covered with tight running stitches. The quilts are medium weight but with a large personality.

Kantha quilts are made for household use in rural parts of Bengal and Bangladesh. Almost every woman knows how to make one and every woman has her own individual style. These quilts are used as bedcovers, blankets, tablecloths, picnic blankets, car blankets, couch blankets ... there is no limit to the utility of these textiles.

 Each one is a story.

 $149.00 Only in the Main Maiwa Store, Located in the Net Loft on Granville Island The artisan heart of Vancouver.

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am
2013 Maiwa Textile Symposium

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am
2013 Maiwa Textile Symposium

2013 Maiwa Textile Symposium
Indigo - The Organic Vat  

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

2013 Maiwa Textile Symposium

Registration Opens June 24 at 10am

2013 Maiwa Textile Symposium

The Maiwa Guide to Natural Dyes
What they are and how to use them



You can purchase cutch online here.


Cutch Extract - This powder is an extract prepared from steeping the wood of the Acacia catechu tree in hot water until a syrupy liquid immerges. This is dried and then ground into powder. It is common to most parts of India, Burma, Indonesia and Peru. Indian cutch is by far the most beautiful. It is a good source of colourfast shades of brown - cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. Cutch extract contains tannin as well as the dye compound catechu. It is easily soluble in water. Cutch has excellent light and washfast properties. It requires 20-50% WOF to dye a medium depth of shade.

Mordanting: use alum mordant at 15% WOF for both protein and cellulose fibres (there is enough tannin in cutch so mordanting with tannin is not required).

Dyeing: completely dissolve the powdered cutch (sometimes cutch will come a little chunky) in boiling water and add it to dyebath.

Deeper colours can be achieved by first soaking the cutch extract in a weak mixture of caustic soda. Add 1 tsp lye or sodium hydroxide to 4 litres (1 gallon) of water. Soak for 1 hour. Then add more water and neutralize with acetic acid or vinegar to pH7. Add this neutral solution to the dyebath.

Fibres are then added and the dyebath is kept at a low simmer for at least two hours. Cutch does not easily exhaust and dyebaths can be used multiple times for lighter shades.

The alum mordant yields toffee browns. The addition of iron at 2-4% WOF yields chocolate browns, while a soda ash rinse will redden the cutch colour. The addition of 2% WOF hydrogen peroxide during the final 15 minutes of dyeing will darken cutch considerably. Allowing the fibre to cool down and sit in the dyebath overnight will give the darkest shades.

The Maiwa Guide to Natural Dyes
What they are and how to use them

Cloth being agitated in a myrobalan bath in preparation for Ajrakh blockprinting.

You can purchase myrobalan online here.

Myrobalan - This dyestuff consists of ground nuts of the Terminalia chebula tree. This tree grows in Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indochina and south China. It may be classed as both a mordant and a dye, giving a light buttery yellow when applied. It is an important tannin based mordant for cotton in India and southeast Asia due to the light warm colour it imparts to the cloth. Myrobalan is a good foundation for overdyeing. It is also the perfect colour to lay down under a single indigo dip for teal. When used as a tannin mordant myrobalan requires 15-20% WOF. If using to create a soft butter yellow use 20-30% WOF.

Myrobalan nuts.

Mordanting: use alum mordant at 15% WOF for protein fibres and cellulose fibres (there is enough tannin in the myrobalan so that mordanting with tannin is not required).

Dyeing: Add myrobalan powder to the dye or mordant bath, bring bath up to 55ºC (130ºF) and then add fibre. Continue heating bath to a high simmer (approximately 83ºC (180ºF)) hold for one hour. Adding iron (2-4% WOF) to the bath will produce soft lichen greens to deep grey-greens.

Look carefully at our light test for myrobalan below. The cloth that was hung in the sunlight for sixty days is actually richer and slightly darker than the cloth that was not exposed to the light. The sample beside it was placed in an iron afterbath. The effect here also is subtle but worth noting: the sample exposed to the light has a very faint shift away from neutral grey and towards a warmer red-grey. This is one of the counter-intuitive qualities of this dye and few others. It actually grows deeper and richer with exposure to light.

Myrobalan at 20% WOF on a variety of fibre types.

The Maiwa Guide to Natural Dyes
What they are and how to use them

Caesalpinia gilliesii (a species of Brazilwood known as the bird of paradise) found in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. Photographed at the natural dye garden in Lauris, France.

Brazilwood (Sappanwood) - is from the heartwood of trees of the genus Caesalpinia. Originally an old-world dye, the discovery of Caesalpinia on the coastlines of South America gave the country Brazil its name. In South America it was harvested (then overharvested) from the species Cæsalpinia echinata.

Sappanwood, Cæsalpinia punctata is found throughout east Asia and is sometimes known as Eastern Brazilwood to distinguish it from Cæsalpinia echinata. Our brazilwood comes from Sappanwood.

This wood is high in tannin and the colourant known as Brazilian. It will produce lovely warm reds when dyed at a 20% WOF and deep crimson reds when dyed at 50-100%. The dyebath can be used multiple times for lighter colours and the wood chips can be dried for future use.

Startling variations can be achieved (bright orange to blue red) when the pH level of the dye bath is manipulated. Fabrics dyed with brazilwood are fast to washing but somewhat fugitive to light.

Eastern Brazilwood

Eastern Brazilwood is available to order here.

Mordanting: use an alum mordant at 15% WOF for protein fibres. Mordant with tannin at 8% WOF and then alum at 15% WOF for cellulose fabrics.

Dyeing: Brazilwood develops best in slightly hard water. Adding finely ground chalk (or a Tum’s tablet – 1 to each 4 liters of water) brightens the brazilwood colour, especially if there is no lime in the local water.

This dye takes time to be extracted - simmer 25-50% WOF of the wood chips for 1-3 hours and leave to cool overnight or longer (some dyers leave for days). Add fibre to the bath. The first dyebath will produce a deep crimson red. The next dye bath can be used to achieve beautiful shades of pink and coral. Change the pH level to an acid to get an orange red or use an alkaline (like soda ash) to get blue-red to brilliant purple. Adding fustic extract will yield rich warm reds and iron will turn the fabric to a mulberry wine colour. A dip in indigo will produce purples.

Brazilwood on a variety of fibre types. Linen, cotton, wool, silk.

Our light fastness tests for brazilwood. 60 days in the sun. Left 50% WOF right 50% WOF with an iron afterbath.