Care & the afterlife
How to keep it,
and how to let it go
Two sets of instructions, because our objects are built to have two endings. Most of what we make will outlast the season it was bought for. All of it is designed to disappear properly when the time comes.
Keeping it
Four materials, four temperaments. None of them need much, but all of them need the right thing.
Dust it with a dry cloth. It does not need washing and it does not want soap, which will sit in the pores and dull the surface. If it has been outdoors and picked up a white bloom, that is mineral salt rising through the clay. Brush it off dry. It will come back, and it is not a fault.
Keep it dry and it will hold for years. Get it wet and it will begin doing the job it was made for, which is to germinate. That is unrecoverable, so keep seed-paper elements away from bathrooms and from doorways in standing rain.
Cold hand wash, no detergent stronger than a mild liquid, dry in shade rather than direct sun. Unbleached khadi softens and lightens over the first few washes and then settles. Expect a small amount of shrinkage the first time, because the yarn has never been treated to prevent it.
Natural dye and the first wash will always give up a little colour. Wash it alone the first time. Never soak, never bleach, and iron on the reverse. The print will fade slightly over years, which is how you tell a real block print from a screen-printed copy of one.
Letting it go मिट्टी में
Buried in ordinary garden soil, in Delhi weather, this is roughly what happens. We tested it on our own pieces rather than reading it off a certificate.
Week 1 to 3
The paper goes first
Minimum order, which is genuinely small for handmade at this quality
Month 2 to 5
Cotton and thread follow
From artwork sign-off to delivered boxes, on standard tiers
Year 1 onward
Terracotta breaks up
Grams of plastic in the object, the filler or the outer carton
Take it out
The brass ring
If you have a piece you no longer want, send it back to us instead of binning it. We will break it down properly, and we will take twenty percent off whatever you buy next. Nothing we made should end up in a landfill.