Mustard, Burgundy & Blue Silk Ikat Fabric – Charlotte

Charlotte is a dense, warm design: mustard-yellow palmettes and burgundy pomegranate forms lock together over the whole width, with olive and a little blue in the gaps and only slivers of white ground showing between. It is the cloth to choose when you want the pattern to do all the work — a straight-cut kaftan in Charlotte needs no trimming. Sixty per cent silk, forty cotton; the mustard has a real gloss in daylight.

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: 42 cm (17 in)
• Pattern repeat: about 225 cm
• Main colours: mustard yellow; burgundy; olive; blue; white
• Design / motif: dense palmette and pomegranate motifs (Charlotte 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: dry-clean recommended; if washing, by hand at 30 °C with a mild detergent, dry in the shade, iron on the reverse

Suitable uses

Kaftans, robes and jackets; cushion fronts; a bolster. Too busy for large curtain drops unless the room is plain. 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 Uzbekiston Pochtasi tracked airmail: USA 9–18 working days, Europe and the UK 8–16, elsewhere 10–20.