Ikat is a traditional textile technique resulting in a streaky effect created by tying and dyeing lengths of yarn before weaving. Sections of yarn are bound tightly by hand before dyeing to prevent penetration of the dye into the tied sections. In India, 6 th century cave frescoes provided the first visual record of ikat fabrics, however it is speculated that this technique has been in existence since pre-historic times. Ikat techniques were used by many of the world’s ancient cultures and it is possible to find examples of such in the traditional textiles of not only India, but also Bali and Japan.

Our ikat-look was achieved by using production-level yarn space-dyeing equipment. The yarn was first bleached prior to space-dyeing. Then the majority of each yarn package was injected with blue dye. One section of the space-dyeing system was left empty of dye, allowing a portion of yarn to remain un-dyed, thus remaining its original bleached white color. The objective of this method was to achieve an ikat-look in a production environment, without having to hand-dye skeins of yarn like that of the traditional ikat practice.

Though ikat is not traditionally found in pile fabrics such as terry, the look is just as striking in woven towels as it is in flat-woven fabrics. The end result is a group of modern towels with design rooted in ancient textile history. Swatches of these developments are available upon request.

FABRICAST™ is the name given to the collection of original fabric developments produced by Cotton Incorporated. Fabric developments include both apparel and home designs and are created to provide continuous inspiration of cotton constructions to our industry. Our developments feature unique cotton yarns, innovative knitted and woven constructions, and interesting finishes for cotton. Swatches of fabrics, along with vital construction, finishing, and testing details are available upon request to manufacturers and retailers of cotton products.