Production getting started! - Hand dyeing the Banana Yarn

So our next production is just getting started slowly but surely in Nepal!!  The whole process takes time; once orders are finalised, the Banana Yarn has to be hand-dyed and dried, before distributing to the women handknitters at Kumbeshwar Technical School (KTS).  Once the knit pieces are finished, then they are delivered to the leather factory (along with all other components and materials) to start the bag production for all the leather goods....

For this AURA QUE production, I will be documenting and describing the whole process as it happens whilst I am currently in Nepal....so for now, we are starting with the dyeing of the Banana Yarn:

The Banana Yarn is supplied in washed natural colour, having been boiled and hand spun from the raw material - the pruned outer layers of the Banana Tree after the fruit harvest in rural Nepal.  This natural yarn is supplied in mass to KTS from their trusted supplier. I am hoping to visit the farmers and producers outside Kathmandu that make this yarn from the raw material, over the next few months, dependent on the next crop season - fingers crossed!

Each lot of natural banana yarn is firstly washed and prepped for dyeing and then dyed the following day in larger copper pots, all on site at KTS.  As I wanted the banana yarn to be a tonal match to the buffalo leather that I am using for the bags, the women dyers firstly try a recipe of different azo-free dyes on a yarn sample.  It is a trial and error process, though all previous dyed colours are catalogued with their dye colour 'recipes' which can also be helpful to find a suitable shade.  When they are happy with the sample colour, a larger sample will be dyed with the same 'recipe'.

A challenge with the natural banana yarn is that sometimes different lots of the same yarn, when dyed with the same dye recipe, come out slightly different tones - which is frustrating when you are trying to match to a sample or leather colour! Therefore I have spent much time in the last two weeks going back and forth to the dye area to check on the process, waiting for the yarn to dry to check before the next lot is dyed (only 1 lot = 10 kg can be dyed in one pot in one day).  There would be even more diversity in colour matching with natural dyes, so to maximise efficiency and minimise wastage, we have to stick to azo-free dyes for now....

For example - see the picture below showing three bundles of the Grey banana yarn for our A/W 2011 collection - if you look closely you can see there is a slight shade difference between each bundle, despite using the same yarn fibre, dye recipe and process!  Its a mystery to me!! Luckily all are similar enough to use for our production in seperate pieces.

Once the yarn lot has been dyed, it is then dried for several days, outside but away from direct sunlight.  Then the yarn is wound into balls ready for the hand-knitters to take home.

So now our banana yarn is nearly finished in our four colours: Black, Grey, Stone Brown and Cream.....almost ready for our AURA QUE bag panels, scarves and accessories to be hand-knitted by KTS' skilled women, who will be collecting the yarn and the patterns from the workshop to then continue knitting the pieces from the comfort of their own home, around the Kathmandu Valley over the next few weeks!

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