Kalamkari, in dust-rose

<p>A summer dohar in three layers of long-staple cotton, block-printed by hand in our Sanganer workshop. The dust-rose ground pulls warmth out of morning light; the central kalamkari medallion is printed in iron-fermented black, the way it has been for two hundred years.</p>

Kalamkari — literally "pen-work" — is a Persian-rooted Indian craft where motifs are drawn freehand with a tamarind-twig kalam dipped in fermented iron and jaggery. Our printer in Sanganer learned the technique from his grandfather; the medallion at the centre of this dohar takes him three days from start to wash.

Cold hand-wash for the first three washes, machine gentle thereafter. Line-dry in shade — direct sun fades the iron-black motif. Iron on the reverse if needed.