Himalayan Weaves

Patricia and Ghayur Alam decided to move to Masrana near Mussourie in Uttarakhand, after retiring from their respective jobs. Dr. Alam worked with a pharmaceutical company, sourcing natural herbs. They wanted to be involved with some activity that was environmentally friendly and create livelihood opportunities for the Bhotiya people, who had earlier collected herbs from the forest for Dr. Alam. They decided to buy the woollen yarn from them and get some weavers in Rampur to weave stoles, shawls and blankets for the local tourist market and sell through their web portal. Being environmentally conscious, they decided that all their products should be in natural fibres, using vegetable dyes, with most of the ingredients sourced from the surrounding region.

They had no previous experience with textiles or natural dyes. Dr. Alam used the internet to teach himself the basics of natural dyeing. He used his scientific understanding to modify the processes and through experimentation, and regular practise, developed methods that are most conducive to the weather conditions in the hills. There is a severe water crisis in this region, so he derived systems that use minimum water and is completely environmentally friendly. He calls this the electric blanket process. A strong, heavy duty, plastic drum is wrapped with an electric blanket. This is further wrapped with a layer of glass wool, which is a good insulating material, and finally a layer of black nitrite sheet which completely insulates the drum. The electric blanket consumes low electricity, equivalent to a small electric bulb. Each colour, including indigo, has its own drum kept at a constant 35 degrees and the same liquid is used again and again. For every dye batch, fresh ingredients are weighed and mixed in the same solution. This helps conserve water which is in short supply in the hills.

Dehradun, close to Masrana, is a centre for ayurvedic herbs. They use aritha (soap nut) for degumming, alum as a mordant for all dyed fabric, mehndi for greens, tea leaves for tan, madder roots for reds, red tesu (flower of flame of forest) that gives a wonderful yellow. The sappan wood is procured from Kerala that gives lovely shades of pinks and reds, indigo powder from Ama Herbal, Lucknow and lac from Jharkhand that offers shades of pinks to purple.

Hanks are hung into the dye bath, turned around a few times and left hanging on a hanger system designed by Dr. Alam that allows the hanks to hang vertically, completely immersed in the dye bath at 35 degrees centigrade for 24 hours. The slow absorbency gives an even colour and since no boiling is involved, the low temperature does not damage the wool. When the hanks are pulled out of the dye bath, they are spun in a small spinning machine to squeeze out the extra water, which is put back in the dye drum.

The hanks are finally washed to remove excess colour. This water goes through a simple filtration process and used to grow vegetables. Before the water is diverted to their own vegetable patch the pH of the water is checked. Vinegar or lime is added to either increase or lower the acidity of the water to between 5 and 6 pH, which is preferable for plants. For human consumption, acidity between 6.5 to 7 pH is preferred. This is an environment friendly way of dyeing that uses minimum water with minimal wastage.