CRAFTS OF INDIA / BANDHANI / INTRODUCTION

CRAFTS OF INDIA / BANDHANI / INTRODUCTION

Bandhani or Bandhni or Bandhej is a highly-skilled process involving Tie-Dye method, wherein the base fabric is first tied at several points by threads and then the cloth is dyed. The manner in which the tying is done decides the resulting pattern in the non-colored portions, when the tying threads are removed.

The technique involves dyeing a fabric which is tied tightly with a thread at several points,thus producing a variety of patterns like Leheriya, Mothra, Ekdali and Shikari depending on the manner in which the cloth is tied. The popular patterns that are chosen are waves, dots, squares and stripes.

Dark Colours are employed for dyeing the ‘Bandhani’ and could be natural or artificial. Principally applied colours being red, green, blue, black or yellow, the background is generally red or black. The main colours used in Bandhani are natural. In fact all colours in bandhani are dark, no light color is used, and the background is mostly in black / red cloth.