From Udaipur, we got on an overnight train to Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Gujarat is known for textiles: block printing, weaving, quilts, embroidery; it's basically a textile wonderland. One of our first stops in Ahmedabad was Gamthiwala, a fabric shop that only sells yards of block printed fabric made in Gujarat. I was in heaven: we spent almost two hours in the shop and I came away with eleven different prints.
Most of the fabric is printed in Kutch, our next stop on the trip, so we will be headed to some of the block printing factories to see the prints in progress. I compared the Gujarati prints to some I bought in Jaipur, and the work is so much finer here, with more detail, better printing and brighter (natural) colors. They had both chemical and natural-dyed fabric at Gamthiwala, but I stuck with the natural colors: black, red, yellow, and blue that come from dyes made with ingredients like iron, indigo and madder.
I have some ideas for how to use my giant piles of fabric, but I will keep that under wraps until the finished products are ready. And I'm sure I'll be collecting just a few (read: a lot) more prints once we get to Kutch.
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