Steel Blue, Black & Tan Silk Ikat Fabric – Heart-Shaped Palmettes

The motif is a heart, or near enough — a palmette drawn with two lobes at the top and a point below — in steel blue with a black outline and a tan centre, repeated large across a white ground. The three colours are cool, and the tan is the only warm note. Sixty per cent silk, forty cotton, on the 40 cm loom.

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)
• Main colours: white ground; steel blue; black; tan
• Design / motif: heart-shaped palmettes
• 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 dress or a blouse, a child’s smock, cushion fronts on navy or grey, a blind. The heart sits well centred on a cushion front. 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. Colours differ slightly between dyelots, so order the full length you need at once. Washing and pressing are covered in how to wash ikat fabric.

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