f i r s t f a m i l y : f a b r i c s

Beautiful, handcrafted fabrics collected by President Obama's mother are on display at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C.

The late Ann Dunham began purchasing the hand-dyed textiles when she lived in Indonesia in the 1960s.

The colorful fabrics — known as batiks — are created by covering portions of cloth with molten wax, dying the cloth, and then scraping and re-applying more wax in different patters. The cloth is then dipped into a different color dye. These processes are repeated to produce intricate patterns and colors.

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