These Joyful hand-printed skirts are done in the Kalmakari art of fabric printing using vegetable dyes. The printing is done using wooden blocks chiselled from teak wood by master craftsmen. This complex and highly skilled art of printing fabric is practiced by certain families in Andhra Pradesh, India. Pomegranate peel, iron scrap, turmeric, Jaggrey, salt etc are used to make the vegetable dyes. The cloth is soaked in Myrabalam Juice before printing. After printing each color the fabric is boiled using leaves, flowers and barks and sun-dried to resume printing. The printed fabric is finally washed in the flowing waters of river Krishna. The flow of the water determines the brightness of the colors.
Small smudges and other minor Imperfections are normal and a testimony to the fact that the printing is entirely done by hand.
