Crafts in Jaipur

Block printing on cotton fabric

The dye bath the printing block is dipped into

A carpet weaver at his loom

Hand finsihing the rugs

A colourful example of a large finished rug

Jaipur is known for manufacturing or more accurately hand making lots of different things.

We visited a fabric printing workshop first. I've tried printing from those wooden Indian printing blocks in the past and not mastered the technique. 

It was fascinating to watch the skill with which the printer applied one block, let it dry, and then applied another colour with another block on top of it, gradually building up more detail in the fabric design. He had a dye bath with what looked like a fitted piece of blanket in the top of the container. And his expert hands printed the fabric with no smudges or drips.

Equally fascinating to me was the fact that there were people under his printing table hidden by the long cloths around it. I fondly imagined his wife and children hiding, just waiting for those pesky tourists to go away!

The next workshop we visited was where rugs were being made. The rugs are hand-made from start to finish with the loose ends being knotted into fringe by the women sitting in a row pictured above. As we watched the gorgeous printed rugs being thrown down in front of us I thought of my interior designer friend and of how she would have enjoyed seeing, and maybe even buying, some of those rugs.

Finally we visited a jewellery workshop where giant blocks of semi-precious stone were cut, sanded and polished into smaller stones to be set in gold or silver jewellery pieces.