Textile Production and Hand Block Printing in Meerut, India

Photographed in Meerut in 2016, this series documents several stages of textile production within a working industrial and craft environment. The photographs show yarn arranged on large frames, mechanical textile-processing equipment, rolls of fabric, sewing stations, finished textiles, and an artisan applying a repeating pattern to cloth with a carved block.

Hand block printing is a relief-printing technique. A pigment, dye, mordant, or resist paste is applied to the raised surface of a carved block and transferred to fabric through pressure. Multicolored patterns may require several blocks, with separate blocks used for outlines and individual areas of color. Each impression must be positioned carefully so that the design continues across the cloth with minimal visible interruption.

There is no single process used for every block-printed textile. Methods vary according to the fabric, colorant, design, workshop, and regional tradition. A typical production sequence may include:

• Washing or preparing the cloth to remove starch, oil, and dirt
• Stretching and securing the fabric on a printing table
• Applying pigment, dye, mordant, or resist paste with one or more carved blocks
• Drying, steaming, washing, or otherwise fixing the printed color
• Rolling, cutting, sewing, and preparing the finished fabric for sale

The photographs do not establish the type of wood used for the blocks, the fiber content of the cloth, the dye chemistry, or whether the workshop followed a named regional printing tradition. These details should remain unspecified unless workshop records or additional field notes become available.

The curved, droplet-shaped motif commonly known in English as paisley is often described in South Asian textile traditions as a buta, boteh, or related regional term. The English name developed through the Scottish town of Paisley, which became a major nineteenth-century manufacturing center for textiles inspired by Kashmir shawls.

Together, the photographs document the relationship between manual craftsmanship and mechanized production. Skilled hand printing, industrial machinery, fabric finishing, sewing, and garment preparation operated as connected stages within the wider textile-production process.