Indigo stitching
I’ve been digging into my old treasure trove of indigo cotton prints from South Africa. Many of the prints were bought in the late 60’s and early 1970’s when I still lived in South Africa. The local blue print cotton, known as shwe-shwe was made in Europe and exported for the African trade in South Africa. The cotton were old Victorian prints and they were cheap. I wrote about my experiences of buying this fabric in the Madrasas and Indian Market area of Durban. You can read that post here.
One of the brands was Three Cats and it is stamped on the back of the fabric.
So much memory of my life in South Africa is coded in this cloth. It transports me to a steamy city by the Indian Ocean, it’s spicy scents and friendly bargaining in the market place. A very long time ago, I sewed long lengths of this shwe-shwe cotton into sheets which turned me blue when the indigo rubbed off on me in the night.
I’ve started stitching small 1 1/4″ squares of the indigo prints onto a linen ground. I like the wiggly spaces left from my appliqué stitching.
I’ve been stitching even while at the hairdressers!
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I particularly enjoyed seeing the markets, the people and dresses from shew-shwe and cotton prints. I had not idea the prints came in that many colors.
Hi Madeline and Rachel: I’d love to see your photos of the new colours of the shwe-shwe.
Rachel: Great to hear from you!I’ll be writing more about these fabrics and sharing more photos here.
As. You know just love these and the new colours are stunning. Will post some on my page
the three cats were printed in Manchester only for resale in Africa. My Aunt came to visit South africa and bought an outfit made from Shwe-shwe( threecats) as she is from Manchester she was wearing it and was stopped randomly in the street to ask where she had bought the fabric. It turns out that he was from the company and explained to her how it was only for resale in Africa.
this was in 1980- I believe since then the rollers to make and print the fabric were sent to South Africa from Manchester.. And it now South african owned..
Thanks for this wonderful story about your Aunt wearing the Shwe-shwe in Manchester. It wasn’t sold in the UK, as it was export cloth for the South African trading stores. So interesting. I know there is a woman in SA who has researched the history of the cloth. Yes, DaGama now makes the cloth using the original rollers.
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