This pattern was created as part of the India Street Project, curated by Katy West. Supported by the British Council and Creative Scotland, India Street worked with a group of designers from Scotland and India to initially explore the Turkey Red archive known as the Bombay Sample Book held at The National Gallery of Scotland. The project has developed over the past three years, during early 2015 the Scottish designers taken over to India in 2015 to learn the art of block printing from master craftspeople and to gain a deeper understanding of traditional Indian crafts and the history behind them. As a group, we were then invited to develop our designs further into motifs that could be block printed onto fabric in India to create a range of products which were then exhibited as part of an exhibition looking at the entire project at Tramway, Glasgow in June 2016.

Often used for turbans, Leheriya is a traditional tie-dye technique from Jaipur made by folding and twisting the fabric before dying, producing a distinctive zigzag motif. The Turkey red sample books made many designs that attempted to replicate this pattern and it was these striking, graphic motifs that caught my eye at the very beginning of the project. I combined two elements from Turkey red, this commonly used zigzag motif and its palate of primary colours to create one of my final designs, which I am delighted to see translated here into a woven rug.