Handwoven kora silk and 30% recycled cotton yarn decorated with freshly plucked neem leaves
The interaction with natural dyes was a window into exploring more ways of mirroring nature. Instead of trying to ape or interpret natural shapes it seemed simpler to just allow nature to talk through our textiles.
As rewarding as steam based eco printing is, we were curious to see if the technique of using plant dyes for printing could somehow be more considered. We came across ‘hapazome’ - the name India Flint (@prophet_of_bloom) gave to the process of beating fresh leaf matter into cloth.
The wonderful sisters at Akane helped us natural dye our 30% recycled cotton yarn into these beautiful greens from hibiscus leaves. This is the same yarn that was used in the weft of the scarf
We had the leaf patterns meticulously hand embroidered with the green yarns to highlight their shape. But we only did this along part of the shape so as to allow for the natural fading of the eco print over time. After some years only their outline in embroidery will be left, and there is a deep beauty in that for us.
The neem leaf has many medicinal benefits that have been highlighted in Ayurveda . Along with its beautiful shape and colour, it has also blessed this textile with antibacterial properties.