Red, Yellow & Blue Silk Ikat Fabric – Bakara

Bakara is a red cloth with big shapes on it: yellow and blue paisley-like forms, each outlined in white and grey, spaced widely enough on the tomato-red ground that the ground is the first thing you see. Held against the light the yellow glows, which is the silk warp doing its work. Forty centimetres wide, the classic Margilan loom width, with a 225 cm repeat. Sixty per cent silk, forty cotton.

Product details

• Product type: handwoven ikat fabric, sold by the metre
• Origin: Margilan, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan
• Weaving technique: warp ikat — the threads are tie-dyed before weaving; handloom, no power looms
• Composition: 60% silk, 40% cotton
• Width: 40 cm (16 in)
• Pattern repeat: about 225 cm
• Main colours: red ground; yellow; blue; white; grey
• Design / motif: large paisley-like motifs (Bakara design)
• Sold by: the metre — one unit is 1 m (1.09 yd), cut in one continuous length from 1 m up
• Condition: new, uncut from the bolt
• Care: hand wash at 30 °C with a mild detergent, no wringing, dry in the shade, iron on the reverse; or dry-clean

Suitable uses

A kaftan or robe cut with the motifs running down the front, a full skirt, cushion fronts with one motif each. Strong enough to be the only pattern in a room. More cloths of this kind are under Silk Ikats.

Handmade note

Handwoven on a wooden loom, so expect what the loom leaves: motif edges that feather where the warp shifted, a hairline of colour variation along the length, and a selvedge that is not perfectly straight. The pattern is dyed into the thread, not printed on it, and shows on both faces — the test described in our handwoven versus printed ikat guide. Colours differ slightly between dyelots, so order the full length you need at once.

Cut to order and dispatched from Bukhara within 24 hours by Uzbekiston Pochtasi tracked airmail: USA 9–18 working days, Europe and the UK 8–16, elsewhere 10–20.