It's a good start for x-tribe enterprises. x-tribe has gone to the Big Island of Hawaii. Richard has set up the business working various markets in the area from Hilo to Maku'u Market, where there is a live volcano spewing lava. Unfortunately, this market is going to go away. The lava is flow will cut off this part of the island from the rest of the island. The stores have been told to vacate the premises. Even the US Postal Service is shutting down.
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Miki and I went to look for my friend Dennis Ascalon's work since I missed the opening at the Metropolitan Museum opening. Check out some of the art. After the hat is dyed, we are now ready to decorate it. See my slide show below as to how to decorate a hat. Hit the play button. Here is the finished decorated naturally dyed hat in natural fibers. I just wanted to say a little something about these raffia hats. Each one of these hats are hand crocheted. It take around 1-1/2 days to finish crocheting just one hat, depending on the quality and thickness of the raffia, and the size of each of the crocheted stitches. You can see how finely woven this hat is. You also have to realize that your hands get itchy as you crochet. It's not like crocheting with straw that is consistent and already in a ball. This is NO easy task.
I am working on my new collection of naturally dyed hand crocheted raffia and abaca hats. It's so exciting to see the results after quite a tedious process. MATERIAL PREPARATION The first thing you need to do, is to gather your natural plant parts that you will be using for dyeing. We used talisay leaves, coconut husks, mahogany tree bark, annatto seeds and turmeric. Now, if you think it's easy to chop these parts into smaller pieces, you're in for not a happy surprise. I was kinda waiting for Adela to say to put these plant parts into a machine that chops it to bits but instead she handed us bolos ( big knives) and a chopping board. The talisay leaves we cut up into small bits. Remember, the plant and tree parts you will be using for dyeing need to be freshly cut. That means if you are dyeing 500 grams of natural materials in talisay leaves, you will need to pick 2.5 kilos of talisay leaves. That's allot of leaves! Tree bark has a longer shelf life than that of the talisay leaves, which is only 3 days. You can keep the tree bark for a longer period of time, but the longer it has been since taken from the trees, the less it's strength of color. The smaller the parts are chopped or cut, the better. Yellow ginger needed to be ground and mashed. For the talisay leaves, you will need to be steeped overnight in water, after they had been washed and cut. There are machines that do chop the plant parts up. They are expensive but they DO exist. MORDANTING Before you are ready to dye, you need to prepare your indigenous materials that you will be dyeing, by mixing them with a fixing agent. This process is called Mordanting. The use of mordants such as copper sulfate, ferrous sulfate, or alum, improves the colorfastness, and enhances the color shades. Copper sulfate is used for medium colors; ferrous sulfate for grey and black colors; and alum, for light and pastel colors. It appears that alum is the only one that is natural. According to PTRI, this process passes the requirements for being naturally dyed, because the amounts are slight. I preferred to only use alum, although in order to make the talisay leaves have an almost black dye, ferrous sulfate is added. I asked if they had any substitutes for the other two fixatives, but the researchers have not come up with a substitute that has been fully tested. I'll keep looking, and post if I find anything that can be used in their place. A SIMPLE RECIPE You can use the liquid ratio of 1:30 for the indigenous materials to the volume of water. Mordant used is 5% of the weight of the material. Boil the materials in the water for around 30 minutes. Stir frequently. Drain and set aside. DYE EXTRACTION The natural dyes (talisay leaves, coconut husk, mahogany bark, annatto seeds, or turmeric) are boiled separately, in 100 degrees C water for 1 hour using a liquid ratio of 1:30. Then it is filtered and set aside. The picture shows the annatto seeds being filtered from the liquid. We used a medium weave cloth to filter the seeds and tree bark. APPLYING NATURAL DYES We soaked the mordanted materials in the filtered dye extract. This is then boiled for 30 minutes. Then it is drained, washed in water, and hung up to dry. NATURAL DYES
My trek next took me to the Philippine Textile Research Institute. They made several studies on natural dyes in the Philippines, and the staff were willing to give Julie Ann and myself a workshop on the process of natural dyeing. Based on PTRI's research, they have identified a number of plant and tree leaves, roots, root barks, barks, fruit skins, flowers, and roots that can be used as stable dyes. We came prepared for our 2 day workshop on natural dyeing, with our natural fibers of raffia fibers, abaca fibers, woven raffia and abaca, plus coco beads. At first, we were scheduled only to dye using coconut husks and talisay leaves. However, thanks to our wonderful instructor, Adela, we were able to also able to dye mahogany bark, annatto seeds and turmeric as well. It was obvious to me, we needed to learn how to dye. The Design Center of the Philippines had always been a good resource for me in the past. Besides having a library with the latest International fashion magazines, I was so happy to learn that they now were holding classes in "Bleaching and Dyeing of Indigenous Materials," using commercial dyes and the classes were FREE! Free is always the best. The timing couldn't have been better. I signed Julie Ann, my soon-to-be-dye-expert assistant and myself up to take the class immediately. After a one morning session of instruction on bleaching and dyeing natural fibers, Julie Ann and I were off in our pursuit of color!
We bought big stainless steel pots to do the dying in-house. We drove to Atkimson's Chemicals in Quezon City, to purchase more dyes and chemicals. I wanted color! I was going to get color! Julie Ann dyed oranges, pinks, and yellows, in several shades. I certainly got color! Then it dawned on me at what price I got my color and was immediately remorseful of the damage these chemical dyes do to the earth. I became uneasy about disposing of these toxins, as I worried they'd end up in the ocean. This dilemma brought me to my pursuit of natural dyes. I met up with my hat maker, Manny. He's been retired the past 5 years. The highlight of his week is playing golf. His wife is supposedly running a small hat business, so I know he is not completely retired. I tell him I need his help in getting my business started. Manny tells me to start designing and making sample hats to show some buyers. I go down to the wholesale market place called Divisoria, in pursuit of the native materials I will need to start my hat and bag making. What I find are only the natural fibers in it's natural state - no color. I tell Manny, "I need color! Where can I get dyed fibers in raffia and abaca?" He tells me, "go dye them yourself". I say, "Ok, now where do I begin?" Manny says he will take me to his dye supplier. The last time I lived in the Philippines, there were no rail transits. I grew up in Manila never having to take local transport. Well, 13 years later, there are 3 Light Rail Transits in Metro Manila! It's still not enough to handle the population in Manila but it certainly is better than none. I always take Norman, my driver/gardener/dog walker/cook/handyman with me. He is my security blanket while traveling the Metro Manila public transport system. He is also my schleper. Richard, my husband, drops us off at the Santolan Station and we head to the end of the line, where we catch a tricycle to the dye supplier. To my amazement the LRT2 ( Light Rail Transit2) is clean and has visible signs of security. It gets us to Divisoria rapidly. I am truly delighted with this discovery. I've moved allot - from city to city, country to country. I like moving. I like new. I like a fresh coat of paint.
In 1991, pregnant with my second son, my then husband, Eric and I decided to move back to the Philippines after 6 years in NYC and 2 years in Montreal. The envisioned the nanny for my son; not having to cook another meal for myself; someone to wash, and mind you, IRON my clothes, that was all to be had when I moved back to the Philippines. Eric was totally enamored with Philippine tribal art. He was ready for the moved too. So... what do I do now? Immediately after graduating from Fashion Institute of Technology in 1989 with the Bernard Holtzman Design Award, Eric married me and whisked me off to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. That was the beginning and the end of my fashion designing career. After all those late nights sewing and unsewing garments, I realized that is not what I want to do. I wanted to do something creative but sewing and designing garments was not it. With Eric's love of tribal art, it wasn't a difficult decision to start an export company that made tribally inspired fashion accessories. The Philippine Department of Labor had these classes on bag making. I learned how to make bag patterns and construction. We made tribally inspired bags, hats and fashion accessories out of indigenous materials. x-tribe enterprises was born. |
Isabel Maramba
Isabel lives in Antipolo City, Rizal, Philippines. She designs, creates, and manufactures hats, bags, and fashion accessories. She practices the sustainable use of natural fibers, indigenous materials, and plant-based natural dyes, in her home-based factory. Archives
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