A cupboard full of small questions.
My interest in textiles began with the scraps under a sewing table. A narrow strip that was useless for a sleeve could still become a patch, a bookmark, or a square in a little sampler. I liked how a fabric changed when it sat beside another one. Dyeing grew out of that habit of arranging small things and looking again.
Where the scraps lead
I live in Ahmedabad, where cloth is part of the everyday landscape of markets, balconies, and household work. My own experiments are deliberately modest. I am learning at home, with a limited working area and more curiosity than formal training. The journal records that scale rather than borrowing the language of a studio with equipment I do not have.
I separate hobby materials from kitchen tools and keep written labels on containers. Good habits make it easier to concentrate on the interesting part: how the sample feels, whether the colour has settled evenly, and what the reverse side reveals. If a material needs handling knowledge I do not have, it waits while I learn more.
When I am not at the colour table, I mend worn cotton shirts and sketch simple repeating patterns. I particularly like patterns that reveal a small irregularity on the second look. The same preference appears in my cloth samples. A slightly uneven square often stays in the tin longer than the one that behaved exactly as expected.