C

Cepuk is a special type of weft ikat cloth from Bali. The word Cepuk means "to meet, to encounter" and signifies coming into contact with spiritual powers. Applied to textiles, the terms usually refers to a four-colored woven cloth with a red background and a design consisting of a retangular frame and a center field with a multi-colored pattern.

E

Endek is weft ikat from Bali, which means that the pattern of the cloth is determined by the weft threads. Endek textiles have a long history of being associated with royalty, but modern production techniques have allowed endek textiles to be produced in greater quantities and are now widely available.

I

Ikat is a style of weaving that uses a tie-dye process on either the warp or weft before the threads are woven to create a pattern or design. A double ikat is when both the warp and the weft are tie-dyed before weaving. The word Ikat itself means "to bundle", referring to the fact that the threads are dyed using a complicated and time-consuming process of bundling undyed yarn, tying groups of them together with short lengths of plastic or banana leaves, and then applying the dye. The dye is not absorbed in the tied areas and the patterns are formed by repeating the process. Read more...

L

Lurik is a style of weaving which originates in Tuban, Java. The cotton is locally grown, planted by the men, plucked, spun, dyed and woven by the women. The white or light brown color of the native cotton gives the textiles produced here a distinctive look.

As in other techniques of weaving mentioned here, lurik is very time-consuming, exacting work and is very much in danger of extinction.The patterns are mostly very geometric and precise and often sober in tone and color. As such they are often under appreciated, but are always worth having a second look at.

M

Metallic threads are often used to embellish and decorate woven cloths, especially the songkets found on this site. The metals, gold, silver or other metals of a gold or silver color, are used in the form of wire or flattened ribbon, but more commonly the thin ribbons are wound around the core of another fiber.

N

Natural dyes are those materials used to color fabric or threads that are produced using only natural substances obtained from animals, minerals or plants. Some common natural dyes are made from tumeric, saffron, annatto, safflower, tree barks and lichens.

Indigo is probably the most famous and historically rich natural dye, used today to color blue jeans. It is among the oldest dyes to be used for textile dyeing and printing. Many Asian countries, such as India, China, and Japan, have used indigo as a dye for centuries. The dye was also known to ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Britain, Peru, and Africa. India is believed to be the oldest center of indigo dyeing in the Old World. It was a primary supplier of indigo to Europe as early as the Greco-Roman era. The association of India with indigo is reflected in the Greek word for the dye, which was indikon. The Romans used the term indicum, which passed into Italian dialect and eventually into English as the word indigo.

The deep blue color is actually developed from yellow-orange sludge resulting from the soaking of the leaves. The sludge is beaten until it turns to green and then to dark blue

With the development of cheaper modern chemical dyes and the increased economic pressure to produce greater quantities of lower cost textiles, the traditional techniques of natural dying are in danger of being completely lost. Projects such as Biji-arts.net and Threads of Life are dedicated to supporting the rebirth of these traditional techniques.

S

Songket is a term which refers to cloths with supplementary weft threads, often metallic. Songket textiles are often stunning examples of the weaver's art. It is a term used to describe those textiles which are decorated with intricate patterns during a secondary weaving process. The production process can involve entire families or work groups.

This technique is a very complicated and time-consuming production process. Even expert weavers usually refer to samples of existing cloth in order to properly "program" the setup of the looms.

The results are spectacular and may be often seen when visiting Bali. These cloths are used in ceremonies and for decorating ritual spaces. As is customary in Bali, these textiles are never tailored, but rather are creatively draped, wrapped or tied around the body.

T

Tie-dying is a technique of dying yarn or woven cloth by tying them tightly in the desired pattern with short lengths of plastic or twine and then dying them. Where the fabric was tied, the fibers do not absorb the dye, forming a pattern. Any kind of dye may be used in this technique.

Examples of tie-dyed textiles may be found all over Southeast Asia, in addition to pockets of Central Asia and India.

W

Warp threads are those that run longitudinally along the loom.

Warp ikat is an ikat cloth in which only the warp threads have been tie-dyed in the traditional ikat process.

Weft threads are those that run perpendicularly across the warp threads on the loom.

Weft ikat is an ikat cloth in which only the weft threads have been tie-dyed in the traditional ikat process, as in endek cloth.