THE ART BEHIND OUR HANDBLOCK PRINTED DESIGNS

We have been worked with the same artisans in India since Sarah first started SARAH.K over a decade ago. 

They have now become firm friends and together we collaborate on all of our block printed designs for our table, bed linen and gifts. 

Each design in our collection starts life as one of Sarah's own pencil drawings or watercolours. We then discuss these ideas with our suppliers and simplify them to ensure they will translate well on to fabric. The next step is hand carving the designs on to wooden blocks - a painstaking and very skilled process. 

Next is the really fun part - choosing colours and combinations. (We try always to make sure we use colours that compliment other designs in our collections so that our customers can have fun mixing and matching.)

The wooden block is then dipped carefully into the fabric dyes and applied skilfully to the fabric by hand. The intricate patterns are created by using a number of different blocks, often using contrasting colours. Each block is pressed on to the layer individually, with each layer contributing to the overall pattern. Some of our more detailed patterns can involve up to 4 blocks. 

The beauty of our handblock printing is that it is done by hand so the differences in the amount of dye used or pressure applied can create beautiful variations and nuances on each piece of fabric.