Inside the Story · No. 14 · Monday 12 October 2026 · Craft · South Asia

Tied Before the Dye

This dotted medallion was never printed. Every dot is a knot, tied by hand before the silk went into the dye, on a Kutch odhani of the early 1900s.

The inside story of a design inspired by a silk odhani tied and dyed in Kutch in the early 1900s.

Odhani or Bandhani (Veil worn over Head), The Cleveland Museum of Art

The source

Odhani or Bandhani (Veil worn over Head)silk, tie-dyed (but not ironed flat) and embroidered with polychrome silk and flat strips of silver plaited with silk thread · Western India, Gujarat, Kachchh, early 1900s · Overall: 144.8 x 111.8 cm (57 x 44 in.)The Cleveland Museum of Art · Odhani or Bandhani (Veil worn over Head), early 1900s. Western India, Gujarat, Kachchh. Silk, tie-dyed (but not ironed flat) and embroidered with polychrome silk and flat strips of silver plaited with silk thread; overall: 144.8 x 111.8 cm (57 x 44 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1925.513. CC0. · object Cleveland Museum of Art accession 1925.513 (web id 107887) · CC0View at The Cleveland Museum of Art ↗

The Cleveland Museum of Art calls it an odhani, a veil worn over the head: silk, tie-dyed and embroidered with coloured silk and flat strips of silver, from Kachchh in Gujarat, early 1900s. The museum left it un-ironed, so the puckers of the tying are still in the cloth. Kutch is home to many of bandhani's most prolific artists, most of them from Khatri families; women do the tying and men usually the dyeing.

What we saw

Five parts, traced from the photograph

1The central medallionFirst, the medallion at the centre. A flower of dots in the middle, a ring of lobes, a ring of paisleys, rings of dots, and a fringe of small triangles.

2The field roundelsAround it, four smaller roundels, each with its own paisleys inside and its own fringe. Four half roundels hang from the inner border.

3The puckered dot groundBetween the motifs, the ground: row after row of small dots, each one a tie, none of them quite in line.

4The dotted paisley borderAlong the edge, a band: a row of chevrons, lines of dots, a chain of paisleys, more dot lines, and a fringe of triangles.

5The embroidered end bandAnd at the ends, embroidery on yellow silk: rows of zigzags, a row of ringed rosettes, triangles, a scalloped metal edge and a hanging fringe.

5 prints, each from a different part

Each print starts from a part of the source

From this partThe central medallion

Print 1 · All-over

Medallion and Roundel All-over

For the first print, I took the medallion and the four roundels together.

The medallion brought down to twelve centimetres, a roundel in every gap, half-drop. On the cloth's own cream, and in the aubergine too. Dress material.

Repeat: Half drop repeat · tile 2658 × 2656 px · 45 × 45 cm
Made for: Surat and Ahmedabad dress-material processors; kurta and co-ord labels selling a bandhani look for the festive and wedding season
Why it sells: A 12 cm dotted medallion with 6.5 cm roundels between, two flat colours and a 22.5 cm repeat is a classic bandhani jaal at dress scale, and the cream colourway reads light on the rack where the dark original would not.

Women's dress material and dupatta110 cm width2 coloursrotary screen or digital pigment on cotton cambricrayon or georgetteTwo colours

From this partThe central medallion

Print 2 · Buta

Paisley Buta

Then single paisleys, lifted out of the medallion ring and the border chain.

Nine of them, tossed as a buta with the little fringe triangles between, cream on lac red. A kurta.

Repeat: Straight repeat · tile 3070 × 3070 px · 52 × 52 cm
Made for: Kurta brands and Jaipur and Surat ethnic labels; export shirting buyers wanting a hand-tied buta
Why it sells: A 4 cm tossed buta in three flat colours with a 26 cm repeat is kurta scale, and lac red with cream dots is the bandhani colourway the trade recognises.

Men's and women's kurta fabric110 cm width3 coloursrotary screen or digital pigment on cottonrayon or modalThree colours

From this partThe puckered dot ground

Print 3 · Stripe

Bandhani Stripe

Then a stripe, from the ground and the border.

A band of the puckered dots, then the chevron row with its dot lines, over and over. Two colours. Shirting.

Repeat: Stripe repeat · tile 2425 × 2306 px · 41.1 × 39 cm
Made for: Shirting mills and menswear brands running small-figure dark grounds; occasion-wear lining suppliers
Why it sells: An 8 cm lengthwise stripe of dots and chevrons in two colours cuts like any shirting stripe, and the puckered real dot positions give it a hand-tied look a drawn polka stripe does not have.

Men's shirting150 cm width2 coloursrotary screen on cotton poplin or linen-look viscosealso festive sherwani liningTwo colours

From this partThe field roundels

Print 4 · Border

Odhani Border

Then one wide border, from three parts.

The embroidered zigzag at the selvedge, the paisley chain as tied, and the half roundels hanging under it. A saree border.

Repeat: Border repeat · tile 2828 × 1209 px · 47.9 × 20.5 cm
Made for: Surat saree process houses printing bandhani-look polyester and georgette for the wedding season; dupatta and odhani printers
Why it sells: A 20 cm one-way border with the embroidered band at the selvedge and the half roundels dropping into the body is how a Kutch odhani is built, and at ten flat colours it suits digital printing.

Saree and odhani border20.5 cm deep10 coloursdigital pigment on georgettechiffon or silkalso lehenga hemsTen colours

From this partThe central medallion

Print 5 · Placement

Centre Panel

And last, the medallion as it is.

Every dot at its own puckered place, at true size. A centre panel for an odhani.

Repeat: Placement print, not a repeat
Made for: Surat and Jamnagar dupatta and saree labels selling festive bandhani looks; boutique ethnic labels
Why it sells: A 22 cm dotted medallion in one colour on a dark ground is the classic odhani centre, and as an engineered panel it prints in one pass with the field left plain.

Odhani or dupatta centre panelengineered placement44 x 44 cm2 coloursdigital pigment on silkviscose or polyester georgetteTwo colours

The palette

Every colour here was already in the source.

#271C24Aubergine ground · from the source

#6E0E24Lac red dot · from the source

#B86F26Orange silk selvedge · from the source

#9F6C36Band yellow-orange silk · from the source

#80292BBand red thread · from the source

#CEBDA5Band cream thread · from the source

#5A5840Band green thread · from the source

#ACA9A6Band silver strip · from the source

#CEBDA5Cream · from the source

#9F6C36Yellow silk (print B sprigs) · from the source

Why now

Diwali falls on 8 November 2026 and the wedding season runs November to February; bandhani is festive wear in Gujarat, and these are the dots, the border and the hem band for it.

Previous storyOne Yellow Boteh All storiesBack to Inspiration

Source: Odhani or Bandhani (Veil worn over Head), Western India, Gujarat, Kachchh, early 1900s, silk, tie-dyed (but not ironed flat) and embroidered with polychrome silk and flat strips of silver plaited with silk thread. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Odhani or Bandhani (Veil worn over Head), early 1900s. Western India, Gujarat, Kachchh. Silk, tie-dyed (but not ironed flat) and embroidered with polychrome silk and flat strips of silver plaited with silk thread; overall: 144.8 x 111.8 cm (57 x 44 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1925.513. CC0., object Cleveland Museum of Art accession 1925.513 (web id 107887). CC0. View the object.

Facts from: clevelandart.org, clevelandart.org.