Activities in the office in January!

The past few months out office has been a beehive of activity. Between adding new people, new work spaces and bidding farewell to a wonderful consultant, here are all the updates:

Our wonderful MBAs Without Borders consusltant Jessica Custer finished her stay with us, shortly before Christmas. We couldn't believe how quickly the 4 months had passed, and were so impressed by all the work we had done together. With Jessica's assistance we were able to streamline a lot of the workflow in our studio, set up concrete plans for growing towards a fully sustainable wholesale model and efficiently co-ordinate with our weaving co-operatives to ensure their growth. Here are some snaps of our pre-Christmas party before Jessica left.

Cake? Homemade wine? Yes please!

Our team made a handmade towel "bouquet" for Jessica!

We were also hard at work on some exciting new orders of Anthropologie, for this spring. They are one of our favorite teams to work with and we're so excited to hear from the each time! This time around, we're adding some new tags to our products so those of you shopping at their stores can also read a little bit about the products, where they are from and how to use them. Here's a peek at the tags going on the towels:

L-R: Anthropologie home tag, Textile Committee authentication tag, our product-info tag

Some of the fun new colors for Anthropologie, getting prepped..

We also hired some new temporary team members to help us out. These wonderful women live in our neighborhood and we were more than happy to hear about their interest in working with us. To make sure there was enough room for everyone, we decided on a fun way to increase our office space quickly: we got another re-purposed shipping container! If you remember ,we had gotten a re-purposed shipping container as our storage space a few moths ago.

To make things comfortable, this container was outfitted with wooden paneling, windows, doors and fans. Additionally we also built a shed over the two containers to keep them cool in the hot sunny weather we have in Kerala. Take a peek:

The outside of the containers, with the new roof

The container, updated to a workspace, all ready for use!

Our wonderful group of assistants who are tying the tassels & checking the fabrics.

While all this activity was going on in the studio, Indu got a call to speak about our work at the TiECon event being held in Kochi this year. It was a two-day conference where more than 2000 entrepreneurs from various professions gave short talks about creating sustainable business opportunities in Kerala. She was invited to speak in the Women Entrepreneurs segment and to say she knocked it out of the park was an understatement! We're waiting for the official video, meanwhile here's a peek at a hand-held video from an audience member (apologies for the quality, but the content is well worth it!)

Indu presenting our work at Kara at the TiECon event in Kochi, December 2013

Well, that's all for this month's updates. Watch this space for more :)

xoxo, Chitra

Wendell Rodricks and India Fashion Week 2012

Wendell Rodricks (image courtesy WendellRodricks.com)

A few months ago we got in touch with the Indian fashion designer Wendell Rodricks after Revathy (our project partner) mentioned our work to him. He had an idea to do a custom weave for his runway show at the Lakme India Fashion Week 2012 in Mumbai that concluded this past week ("Omg, for real?!!"-- was my reaction when Indu told me). To say that we were over-the-moon was quite an understatement, as we've been fans of this talented designer's work for ages!

Based out of Goa, Wendell's works a lot of structure and form into his design, and the hallmark of his creations have always been the way he works with white and off-white to make the garment's cut and construction stand out. In so many ways, his work fit our portfolio of fabrics so effortlessly!

What he wanted was a woven shawl with loose yarn detailing in White, Black and Brown shades. He sent us a detailed drawing and images of how he wanted this piece to work. We set about working with our weavers and here is the finished piece in our studio and on the runway at the LFW2012 (Show images courtesy The Times of India, Rediff.com)

Quick grainy shot of the piece in our studio, before we sent it over to Wendell.

The Times of India coverage of the show (images from TOI)

Another image of the runway event at LFW 2012 (via rediff.com)

As this collaboration draws to a close, we're so utterly thrilled to check this item off our dream-wishlist, and are overjoyed about getting the humble Kerala thorthu on the fashion runway! Wendell, we're so thrilled & proud to work with you and look forward to many such opportunities! xoxo, Indu & Chitra.

(ps: If you're a fashion designer and reading this, yes, email us about working together!)

That time of the year..

We are re-organizing our inventory and making room for the new collections. So, we've decided to give our US-based shoppers a discount on the previous collections with a blowout sale. (International shoppers, we love you too, and are putting up a bigger storewide sale very soon!)

Bath towels, Picnic mats, Wraps or a Table cloth: now at $10 per color!

Things are selling faster than I can share this update, so I'd suggest you make your way over here to see if there's something you like. Happy Summer!

Set of ten table napkins for $30, only till these stocks last!

New York 2012

This past week was a busy time as I traveled to New York city to attend the design week events in town. What I did not expect to do was meet up with so friends from around the world. Here are the highlights, in no specific order of preference:

I attended Rena Tom's amazingly insightful workshop on wholesale tips for small businesses.
The event was held at the lovely Design*Sponge studio in Brooklyn. 

Dropped in for a chat with Doug Johnston and see his detailed works-in-progress at his Brooklyn studio. He and his incredibly talented wife Tomoe are the nicest peeps on the planet! :)

Doug gave me these AMAZING delicate yet sturdy cotton rope baskets: I cant wait to use them!

Caught a quick brunch with (l-r) my cousin Sandhya, my friend Anvita and cousin Leslie.. love these girls!

I had a brief, fun chat with Avery of Juju Papers at the ICFF: loved all her handmade prints!

I did not remember to take a pic, but I also had a nice chat with Sanjay Rajan and Tricia O'Keefe of Slowcolor about the gorgeous textiles they sell and the weaving co-operatives in Andhra Pradesh that they support.

At the Cranbrook + Alessi event. Some amazing work by Cranbrook folks in the foreground.
Also, a man with amazing hair.

"A Reasonable Mirror" by Chris Schank, my classmate from Cranbrook (@Heller Gallery)

This piece spoke volumes about new life in familiar yet discarded materials, I am such a fan! (@Heller Gallery)

Jack Craig's PVC stool made a beautiful use of the material and pliability. (Heller Gallery)

The Bodega Bag, by Aria McManus: love this for how obvious and beautiful this was! (Heller Gallery)

Dropped in at the Wanted Design event with the fun work by French and American students.
So glad my friend Carli Heggen sent me this way from the ICFF!

Caught up with my Elle Kim, fellow 2D from Cranbrook & an amazing designer. (Pic via Instagram)

Kiel Mead at the Core 77 show gives driftwood new life as wall hooks: I love these fun colors and textures!

Seldon Yuan's Center of the Youniverse juxtaposes constellations and well, your face! (at the Core 77 show)

Lindsey Adelman's Piecework is a hand-stitched skeleton of the American flag. This quiet powerful piece was on view at the "Love it or Leave it" show at R'Pure Gallery.

Ran into Rhea Karam on the street, my classmate (and an amazing photographer) in Paris from 10 years ago!

I loved the re-purposing of wood by Piet Hein Eek at Future Perfect's pop-up shop at NoHo.

Looking up at Manhattan.

On the last evening, I sat in a quiet office on the 40th floor of a shiny skyscraper, waiting for my cousin to wind up at work, and took in this view. I don't think I'll ever get used to how tall these buildings are, but most importantly, I'll never get used to how amazing the folks who live + work here are. Lots of love your way, NYC!

New year, New ideas!

On this eleventh day of the new year, at Kara, we are extremely thankful for the wonderful people we have met and new work we've started over the past few weeks. I've been meaning to blog earlier, but was a bit caught up with family and travel. Here are some new products that will soon be online:

Block-printed scarves on a new weave: fresh off the looms

We have been quite busy printing some new fabrics for table linens and scarves. I've been looking forward to printing the scarves for a while, was so glad to see the creamy white yards of the scarf fabric arrive from the weavers!

Double colored block-prints on the scarves

Multicolored block-printed scarf in an ultra-soft cotton weave

Also fresh off the looms were these canvas-textured tablecloths and soft cotton napkins. The colors, patterns and textures are all new; can't wait till these are online soon!

Pastel colored tablecloth in a beautiful new weave and pattern!

Fawn, ash and tan come together for this earthy table cloth and napkin set

Bordeaux and ash with bold white stripes for another earthy toned tablecloth

Block prints at Kara!

The latest addition to our crew of block prints, these polka prints are on 100% cotton table napkins, on sale here!

New prints with a custom-carved linoleum block, on sale soon!

I've been meaning to write about our new block print collection, but have been so busy printing and shooting for the collection that almost ran out of time! So here is the update:

As this past summer drew to a close and our first promotional sale was off to a fabulous start (thank you shoppers!), we got back to the drawing board for some new directions. I've been wanting to work on surface printing for a very very long time, so I decided this was going to be the perfect opportunity to develop a new line for Kara Weaves.

Had so much fun printing this pattern for the festive collection. Printed using custom-cut rubber blocks.

I've kept the patterns geometric, keeping in mind the clean lines that we love at Kara. It obviously keeps the cutting on linoleum simpler, but I also like the textures I'm getting inside the blocks of color. Especially love seeing the natural fabric weave texture through the inks and how the colors of the print and weave interact with each other.

Detail of the print on the ZigZag table cloth, sold out but soon available in black!

I'm so thrilled to say that the first few editions are already sold out and I'm working on some new ones for next week! These lovelies are printed with non-toxic, water based inks that are heat-set for permanence. Here are some more pix of the making and product-shoot.

Some sunny bright stripes on the hair-wraps.

New Weaves!

Candy colored new stripe patterned bath towels on a super-soft new weave

As the holiday season approaches I wanted to keep you all posted on a few new things we have been developing at Kara. More specifically, about this incredibly soft new weave in cotton, that we've created. To say it feels like butter would be an understatement; on sale right here!

Check patterned towels in a soft blue

We've re-worked our all-time favorite bath towels with these delightful new candy stripes and check patterns. The first consignment from the weavers is in and looking sweet.

Candy colored table napkin sets, 15"x15"

The check pattern in black

We've also been experimenting with block-printing, as I've been mentioning on Twitter. Recently I made some prints on the new fabric and its such a delight to work with! Below are some pictures of the new block-prints on this fabric in our Tria pattern, which work really well as table-cloths.

We are still offering free shipping, so happy shopping!