Thursday, August 02, 2007

Field Trip to Karma Kutir


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Originally uploaded by dalbhat
As a culmination of our course on cloth, the Moon Group of the Learn & Earn Project at Shikshamitra went to visit Karma Kutir, another Kolkata NGO specializing in batik dyeing.

We piled into two taxis and made our way over to Gol Park, where Karma Kutir is located by the Ram Krishna Mission. We were first given a demonstration of the batik dyeing process outside on the roof, and how the wax is put on the cloth to create designs. The women at Karma Kutir were extremely kind to us and gave us a warm welcome and an unforgettable experience to carry back home with us.

Shikshamitra students were each given a handkerchief-sized cloth and got a chance to try their own wax designs. They brought along their design notebooks to get ideas. Once their designs were down, they went back outside to dye the cloth. Everyone exclaimed, "Oooooh!" when the colour magically appeared as the handkerchief was dipped into the dye and turned a surprisingly bright color. The last step was taking off the wax in a vat of hot water and hanging up to dry.

As you can see from this photo, we had excellent results and a very fine outing!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful colors and designs!
- Mary-mashee

Unknown said...

It sounds like a great trip to the batiking place. MAura Auntie is a great teacher!!!!