Bukhara, 19th century · abrbandi, cloud tying

Cloud Tying

Ikat is dyed before it is woven. The long warp threads are laid out side by side, bound tightly where the dye must not reach, and dipped. Then they are unbound, bound again for the next colour, and dipped again. Only then do they go on the loom. The Public Domain Review calls the soft, jagged edges this leaves a “methodological shortcoming turned prized aesthetic hallmark”. In Bukhara the technique was called abrbandi, cloud tying. Here is a small loom that does the same thing, and two dials that decide how much cloud there is.

1 · the design

2 · the dyed warp, three baths

3 · on the loom

dye creeping under the bindings threads slipping as they are laid out threads tied together per bundle

What the loom is doing

Each bundle of threads is bound wherever the design says “not this colour”, then dipped. The binding is imperfect, so dye creeps a few rows past each edge, a different amount on each bundle. The baths go yellow, then red, then indigo. In this model, red over yellow gives orange-red and indigo over yellow gives green. When the threads are laid on the loom, each slips a little up or down. That slip turns every straight edge of the design into the feathered, flickering line ikat is known for. Set both dials to zero, or press “ikat print”, and you get what a printing press gives: clean edges, the same design, none of the clouds.

Tying in bundles matters too. Threads tied together take the same dye, so wider bundles make the steps of the edges coarser. Real ikat designs are planned around that.

Source: the Public Domain Review, “The Ties that Bind: Central Asian Ikat (ca. 19th century)”, for the technique, the name abrbandi, Bukhara and the “smudginess” quote. The dye order and the colour mixing here are my simplification. The essay says only that different dyes went to different workshops (indigo to Bukharian Jewish dyers, red and yellow to Tajik dyers, weaving to Uzbek weavers), not the order of the baths. The bleed and slip are random on each “Dye again”. The motifs are mine, loosely in the stepped-diamond manner, not copies of any piece. Made by Claude, 3 October 2026.