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About Natural Quilts
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Our company
promotes traditional crafts made ethically from natural materials. Natural
quilts are handmade using environmentally friendly hand block printing and
natural dyes making them free from harmful chemicals and processes. The quilts
using vegetable dyes fade naturally over time due to the absence of chemicals to
set the dyes. This combined with hand block printing makes each quilt unique. We
firmly believe in buying quality goods and knowing where our products come from
and the process they go through before reaching us. Fair working partnerships to
benefit all parties concerned are very important.
Background
Natural
quilts are a specialty of Jaipur in Rajasthan, the desert
region of north-west India. Nobody quite knows when and how
this mini marvel came into being. Why did Rajasthan alone
become the home of this unique form of winter covering when
quilts were common all over? Certain factors seem to have
played a part, the inhospitable desert terrain, the bitter
winter and the age-old Rajasthani penchant for being
constantly on the move. Sundown in winter always sent the
temperatures plummeting among the dunes. For those who
stayed home, there was warmth enough but to many a
Rajasthani male, home was none other than the dunes
themselves with only the sky for cover. Princes and
chieftains on the warpath, soldiers in the saddle, banjaras
(gypsies), bhopas (itinerant bards), shepherds, traders,
camel caravans rolling along the featureless sands on
private business all needed something to keep the chill out
without adding significantly to their saddle bags. And some
genius who remains unsung to this day found the perfect
answer in the Jaipuri quilt.
 The
process
The
age-old techniques for making these quilts involve using
pure cotton for filling just when the fresh crop comes in.
The trick lies in the carding. The skilled craftsmen card
away all the dross to get only the finest fibres resembling
soft clouds. The lighter the quilt, the more evenly it is
filled and you will find it warmer and more comfortable. The
outer cloth is soft cotton voile infused in natural dyes and
hand block printed. The actual quilting is done by skilled
craftswomen in their own homes. A double quilt takes a woman
around four hours to complete.
Natural
Dyes
Many of our fabrics are printed and dyed using Natural Dyes. A variety of colours can be achieved using natural dyes. You can see below how some of these colours are made and that Natural Dyes are affected by many factors including air temperature and humidity, The resulting fabrics vary from one batch of dyeing or printing to the next making each piece unique.
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Blue from
the Indigo plant
Observe
the rich blue achieved from the Indigo plant. The leaves are soaked in
water for several hours until compounds from them collect in the water.
The leaves are removed and the water whisked exposing it to the air,
forming the indigo residue which is then used for dyeing and printing.
This is an environmentally friendly process as the plants require little
maintenance and are often used to revitalize soil between crops. The
soaked leaves are also sold on as an organic fertilizer. |
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Yellow
from Turmeric and Pomegranate
Yellow dye
can be made by boiling the shells of the pomegranate for 48 hours; the
liquid is strained and mixed with ground Turmeric in a copper pot. The
Hindi word for Turmeric is Haldi, and is often used as a food spice.
Turmeric provides a strong dye either with or without the Pomegranate;
it is often used in conjunction with other dyes such as Indigo to
produce a green, or with Madder root to achieve a rust/orange colour |
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Green from
Turmeric, Pomegranate and Indigo
Turmeric
and Pomegranate are used to create yellow dyes which are often used over
the top of an Indigo dyed or printed fabric resulting in an overall
green effect. The yellow dyes are light sensitive and over time your
green fabric will become more and more blue (indigo is far more stable)
with successive washing and wearing. |
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Red from
Alum and Alizarin
Alizarin
commonly comes from the dried root of the madder plant (though other
roots are also used). The Alum (a metal compound) which acts as a
mordant is first printed onto the fabric as a colourless paste. When
this is immersed into a vat of Alizarin, the two compounds react with
each other and turn red. |
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Black from Iron, Sugar and Alum
Rusted Iron (often from old horse shoes) is soaked in a mix of sugar solution (sugar from molasses) and flour made from Tamarind seed. This is left to ferment in the sun for a couple of weeks. The resulting paste produces a rich black, quite different from that made from chemical dyes. |
Natural versus synthetic
You may
think that a quilt with synthetic filling will be better than a naturally filled
one, prefer the modern to the traditional. But you would probably feel
differently if you got a chance to make a proper comparison.
User trials conducted by an independent market research company over a two month
period showed that, given the chance to try sleeping under both natural and
synthetic quilts, an amazing 75% of users said they preferred the natural
quilts.
There are many reasons for this:
First, naturally filled quilts breathe in a way synthetic quilts cannot. So the
moisture lost by your body while you sleep is absorbed overnight, and then
gradually lost in the morning when the quilt is aired. When you sleep under a
synthetic quilt, there is nowhere for that moisture to go resulting in a sticky
feeling.
Second, natural quilts drape better round the lumps and bumps of your body than
synthetics, which can be rather stiff. Because you can snuggle into it better, a
natural quilt will usually feel warmer on a chilly night than a synthetic quilt
of the same thickness, even if both are new.
Thirdly, a natural quilt will almost always be lighter than a synthetic one.
Natural fillings bring warmth without weight, for a really comfortable, natural
sleep. |
