Block print collection

In collaboration with one of my partners from India (Vastraashi), we managed to create these beautiful sets from these left-over block prints.

Block printing is an age-old and traditional printing technique that takes a lot of time, but above all a lot of love and craftsmanship. Priyanka, the owner of Vastraashi, took me to the brother and sister's printing house
Ankit and Akansha. They are among Priyanka's oldest friends as they grew up together because their parents lived next door to each other. Together they have been running their print house for about five years.

During the tour I saw how the designs from a sketch were then cut out of wooden blocks, which are used as a kind of stamps to print the fabric. Each color in the print is a separate layer and therefore a separate stamp. When a print consists of five different colors and a stamp is often no larger than 10x10cm, you can understand how much time is involved in this process. No matter how accurately the work is done, you can sometimes see that a stamp is printed slightly crooked, after all, it remains handmade. This fact gives just that little bit of added value to the design, because the love that has been put into it can be seen. . Honestly, isn't this ten times more beautiful than a digitally printed print without any depth in gigantic editions?

Here too, it sometimes happens that there are meters of fabric left over from a previous production, or that colors were not fully achieved as a customer wanted, because the drying process is dependent on the weather. After the meters of fabric have been printed, they are washed and dried outside in the sun. When the air is more humid, this will affect how the color of the paint turns out.
For that reason I did not develop any new prints, but made a nice selection from the left-over and rejected meters that they had in their archive.

The cotton quality is comfortable all year round and can be worn all year round in endless variations with the right styling. Which set is your favorite?