Fabric Adventures in Africa Part II + Exciting SHWS Gallery Opening Announcement
A rhino in Kenya’s Lake Nakuru National Park photographed by William Rounds. Indeed not fabric, but inspiration for the wonderful prints and colors you’ll see in this post.
As you’ll recall in my last post, Paula Benjaminson who lives Libreville, Gabon shared some of her fabric shopping experiences in the markets of West Africa. Today she’ll give us a perspective on the types of fabrics that are made in Africa. The post is yours Paula . . . uh-oh, forgot a couple of details . . . make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom for the name of the winner of Paula’s bundle of African prints and for the details of our special exhibit of African quilts in the See How We Sew Gallery opening this coming Friday.
Great Textiles
The African continent has a long history of producing high-quality, museum-worthy textiles. If you spend just ten seconds looking up kente cloth, bogolanfini (mud cloth), or kuba cloth on Google Images, you’ll be dazzled by the beauty and variety of just these first three examples of African textiles, and there are many, many more. As a quilter, though, you probably wouldn’t find yourself cutting up those prints for a Nine-Patch block. I mostly use West African wax prints, batiks, and hand-dyes in my quilts, all of which are well suited for quilting, although the colors and scale of the prints might be a bit of an adjustment.
Wax Prints
African batiks are made in basically the same way as Indonesian batiks, with a pattern laid on cloth with wax and then over dyed, but the African patterns used are quite different. Geometric designs are more common than florals or botanicals, and the wax is most often applied using stamps carved by the artist from gourds or wood as opposed to the intricate metal tjaps traditionally used in Indonesia.
Hand Dyes
If you ask me, hand-dyed African fabrics are pretty much irresistible. You might already be familiar with traditional (and gorgeous) indigo fabrics, which are made from white cloth tied up with hundreds of tiny stitches to help resist the blue dye.
Other fabrics have been dyed using patterned brocade as a base. So, in addition to the design from the dye, there is also an underlying pattern from the weave visible when the cloth is turned to catch the light. This gives the fabric a depth that rewards closer look. In these two photos, you can see the pattern of the brocade under the dye:
Sometimes these beautiful hand-dyed pieces are sold paired with coordinating solid brocades, ready to be used as a skirt or trim for a garment made with the more flamboyant partner.
I also find home decor fabrics here that I like—check out the photo of my favorites. A company called Woodin in Ivory Coast is the manufacturer. They make excellent bags as you can see!
Quilts
I’ll leave you with a couple photos of quilts made with African fabrics. The first is a quilt my students and I made in Ouagadougou for a raffle, which features motifs fussy cut from a delicious pile of prints.
