An Ajrakh rug featuring abstract rhombuses of various widths in a palette of indigo and henna.

This is one of the first successful rug designs I made. Ajrakh didn’t have a tradition of block-printing on rugs. This started as a collaboration project with textile students of University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2013-14.

The students visit my workshop to study understand the craft and process of Ajrakh. Back in the university, they come up with the concept and layout for the design. And once developed these rugs go back to them as part of their collection.

We had to come up with bold patterns to go with these rugs.  The intricate traditional ajrakh patterns wouldn’t work. Because of the thickness and texture of the rugs. The print and dyes from the surrounding areas would smear and smudge the intricate outlines.

This rug was printed with lime and gum arabica for the resist outline. The black areas were printed with fermented rust iron paste. And a third print layer with a mixture of clay and alum paste.

The piece is dyed in Indigo and then finally boiled in Henna which reacts with clay-alum printed areas to give a pale greenish yellow.