Annie + Watson

New fashion icons.

forgot about these. This was from the local bus ride Depasar-Yogyakarta.  On the ferry to java there was some sweet Karaoke + lavishly tiled bathrooms (sort of).

cool plants, cool hats.

Sarong almost finished- this is even better than Christmas.

Ikat and dyeing finished.  Here Kartini and I are lining up the pattern.  (for the record, I was working here too, but someone had to photo)

I met these girls in Denpasar during their dance practice.  They tried to teach me too (not much success there), but they were sweet and we were laughing and joking all afternoon.

The next two pictures are of the people I am weaving with.  The first is during a performance, but normally we are playing in the kabun (garden)-(its actually a very steep mountainside that has some great plants) in the village (Watulapi) or play volleyball.

Fourth is a picture of the Ikat I designed. With Ikat you first dye the threads and then weave them together to create an image.  To develop the image you wrap the threads in dried palm leaf to protect certain areas from the dye.  This takes forever (depending on the complexity of the design).

The ikat I am making is based on the fifth image, a Sumbanese ikat.  A fairly large but not overly complex design,  and it still took 5 days to finish (if this gives you a sense of time.)  Dyeing takes another week, or longer particularly with red and black. These two colors require numerous phases of  harvesting roots and leaves, pummeling them, and repeatedly dying and drying the threads to get really great colors.  This is why those nice red and black textiles are so pricey! Lotsa time.  

Batik.  Photos from the first two batik workshops. Great women from Imogiri an hour outside of Yogya.  Traditional dyes need many dippings to attain rich colors.  For one color on one piece of cloth as many as 60 or more stages of dying and drying are needed. (not to mention the time for the other colors). woah.

Temple, volcano, running down from volcano, lake, paradise.