Featured Textile: Hmong Indigo Fabric

This beautiful textile is created by the Hmong people of northern Laos. It has orange, red, yellow, and pink cotton piping hand sewn along the length of the piece. This fabric is 100 percent cotton that has been hand woven and hand dyed using the wax resist, or batik, method.

Traditionally, these cloths were woven from locally grown hemp. More recently, the Hmong people also use some cotton and synthetics. The designs are drawn in wax on undyed cloth, and the cloth is then dipped in a vat of indigo dye, removed, and allowed to dry in the sun. Over the course of several weeks, the cloth is dipped into the dye many times until a deep blue shade is reached. The wax is removed and the amazing patterns are revealed.

Splitting bamboo to make looms

The pictures from the villages were pilfered from hilltribeart.com. Their site is BEAUTIFUL and has lots of very very very great information on all of this and more.

Weaving hemp fibers

Beautiful batik textile!

Here's a more detailed description of the process from Fibre2Fabric:

The cloth is scored in a grid making it easier to draw the symmetrical patterns. Bees' wax is collected from the forests, heated in small metal pots and mixed with indigo paste (which colours the wax and makes it easier to see on the cloth). Bamboo pens with metal nibs are used for drawing the wax onto the hemp. The wax marks will resist the dye when the cloth is dipped in the indigo pot and left to dry. To achieve dark shades of blue and black a cloth is dyed more than 40 times over a period of two weeks. When the cloth is drying in the sun, care must be taken that the wax doesn't melt. After the last dye bath has been completed, the cloth is boiled to remove the wax. The batik process is finished. Bold designs in white cloth are set against shades of blue or black indigo.

The Hmong People  started arriving in Laos in the early 1800s. They are thought to originate from the plains of Tibet and Mongolia, moving southwards through China. A number of sub-groups are acknowledged, all identified by a particular style of textile. "White Hmong"  decorate their clothing with plain (undyed) white bands of hemp on which they have embroidered. "Blue Hmong" produce the indigo resist batik featured here. "Striped Hmong" stitch bands of fabric onto their sleeves. "Flower Hmong" decorate their clothing with exquisite embroidery. I've seen reference to other sub-groups (Red, Green, Black among them), but it's difficult to track (for me).

Hmong people speak Hmong, a Miao-Yien language in the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. No written text existed until recently. Textiles served as a medium of visual expression and symbolic communication.

Blue Hmong!

White Hmong Ladies (photo from linda-hmongfamily.blogspot.com)

Stripe Hmong women by Roger Blum (check out this page... AMAZING photos!)

Flower Hmong Ceremonial Dress

Flower Hmong: Look at this baby carrier! Photo by Linda De Volder

MIRI