Ikat means “to tie” in Malay/ Indonesian languages. Here are two women in Flores Island, Indonesia, tying bundles of white cotton threads that are stretched on a frame. They use palm leaves as the ties. Each tie creates a knot that held the threads together, and the arrangement of many knots create a pattern. When the tying is finished, the women will take off the threads from the frame and dip them in a dye bath to add color. But the dyes cannot penetrate the bound areas protected by the palm-leaf knots, so those areas preserve the natural white of the cotton. This is how different colors are created in ikat cloth.