Happy New Year Greetings

Ikat silk piece from South Vietnam Khmer village 

Wishing you a very colourful and fulfilling year 2014

Que 2014 soit une année toute en couleur et de bonheur!

Khmer weaving village in South Vietnam

Sign language to explore memories

Ikat dyed weft

A lady is weaving in the dusty courtyard in the front of the house, two steps away from the street where rice is drying in the sun. We got off our motobikes.



In this village, they practice ikat on silk. After dyeing the silk threads according to a set pattern, they prepare meticulously the bobins which will e bwoven using a bamboo shuttle.

The warp is plain black and they use plain weave.

The design is sufficiently precise to represent temples and elephants and mayn other subjects, but the blurry edges add character to the pieces.

Bobins are carefully organised to ensure
the right pattern formation.

Samy, the weaver and daughter

So I tried to find out what type of dye they use. Eventually, I was shown this swatch of colours and the bags of powder. 



It turns out they buy chemical dyes from Thailand. 

Saon Mamo told me how they dyed silk with plants

Through much sign language and rough translation, I got through to the old couple. 

'In the old days, when you did not have these powders, what leaves and plants did you use to dye the threads?" 

Chau Mom showing a piece of bark
used to dye in yellow. 

The mother, Saon Mamo understood my query. She went straight to a nearby tree and came back with some lleaves. They used to extract green dye from it. 

What about blue?
Blue, they got from far away from the mountains, she said. Red also.

But for yellow, the father, Chau Mom fetched a piece of bark, which turned yellow when he wetted it!

There was a lot of excitment and laughter by the time we took off to return to Chau Doc. Perhaps when I return one day, they will be using their plant dyes again?

Their village of Ap sray skoth, Xa Van Giao, 
South of Mont Sam

Tan Chau famous silk in the Mekong Delta - Lanh My A

Home of mysterious fine black silk

Tam Lang's jacquard looms in Tan Chau,
South Vietnam

Tien, our guide, did find the Tam Lang weaving workshop in the backstreets of Tan Chau. 

I had read that he was the last weaver producing the prized black vervetty silk requiring a lengthy traditional process. 

See Saigon Daily story here on the history of Tan Chau's vibrant silk activities, decline then revival of traditional techniques. This led the famous silk to the catwalks!

Tam Lang wearing black silk

Black dye with Ma Nua fruits
in the Mekong delta

Tan Chau developped a reputation for fine and deep black silk. They dyed the fqbric with the fruit of the Mặc Nưa, or Diospyros mollis Grill. You need to prepare a dye bath with the fruit, dye the fabric then dry it in the sun each day for 45 days in order to get a vrey dark black shade.







Tan Chau est connu pour sa teinture noire, très noire, obtenue a partir des fruits du Mặc Nưa, au nom latin Diospyros mollis Grill. Il faut teindre le tissu dans un bain de fruits broyés puis le faire sécher au soleil et recommencer 45 fois, soit pendant 45 jours avant d'obtenir ce noir profond. 

I enquired if we could watch them dye, but the person in the workshop said they were not ready and didn't have enough fabric to start the dyeing process.

Just like in the story, I admired the beautifully soft and shiny silk fabric and asked if they only produced it in black... History repeats itself. The same comment from a French lady years back, motivated Tam Lang’s son Nguyen Huu Tri to travel around the region and collect recipes for natural dyes in different colours!

Plus d'infos ICI

Silk spooling in Vietnam

Mekong delta meanderings

Tan Chau's silk spooling factory

Tan Chau, a village near Chau Doc by the Cambodian border, had the reputation of the best silk farming and production. 

So off we went on the back of motobikes with our driver Tien, following little roads along canals and among rice paddies.

Tien had done his research the previous night . Here we were, he opened the door of a dull looking buidling from which came a loud mecanical noise... we took our shoes off and stepped into the factor,y in the middle of intense activity. Two floors of spooling machines.

First step, tranfer the threads onto bobins.

Skeins if single silk threads come from Dalat

Skeins of silk threads are now coming from Dalat, in the mountains where they have large scale silk farms. There are unfortunqtely no more mulberry trees in Tan Chau.

In this factory, single silk threads are spooled together in sereval plies, then the process is repeated again and again until the right number of plies.

Constant attention to mend broken threads

Tourist distraction in the
production lines

Dividing the rolls which will become skeins.

Tyeing the skeins together is a matter of skill
using hands and toes.

Skeins of silk threads ready for sale to weaving factories

Smiles from all ages in this busy Tan Chau factory