Unexpected Benefits

One of the benefits of travelling is getting to meet and know people that I would ordinarily never have the opportunity to meet.  Some people have lived very adventurous lives in far flung locations, while others have made their lives much closer to their home bases.  It is always a treat to get to know more about the interesting ways textiles have impacted on people.

So it was when I met Winnie.  She had lived and worked for a time in Asia and been entranced with the textiles she saw in the different cultures, eventually creating a collection of different cloths - ikats, warp, weft and compound (warp and weft) as well as batik in various forms.

She invited me to come and visit for a few days so I could see some of the amazing textiles she had found.  Arriving a few days early for the conference also allowed me to re-set my body clock - three hours doesn't seem like a lot, but I've found that it makes a huge difference in terms of when I naturally fall asleep!

If I remember correctly the first four photos are all ikats of one type or another; the last is batik.

as always, click on the photo to biggify

This batik is amazing, not just for the fineness of detail, which is incredible enough all by itself, but for the overlay of a paste made from gold.  Cloth of this type is now quite rare.  No doubt many examples were burned to recover the gold at one point or another.  The photo shows both the back side (foreground) as well as the right side and that gleam is, indeed, the gold decoration.

As we drove to the airport Winnie pointed out that I had only seen the contents of three of the drawers housing her collection.  I may have to return!

Currently reading Mystic and Ryder by Sharon Shinn