Seeing the dark and cramped space where these saris are woven, I perfectly understood why the senior weavers from this workshop had taken their warp to the local park to prepare it for mounting on the loom. Continue reading
Varanasi has long been renowned for it’s gold-highlighted silk saris, though I’m told that nowadays they are more likely to be woven from Chinese silk than Indian.
I was intrigued to find Bhutanese yathra-style jackets for sale in Kathmandu. Enquiring of the shopkeeper, I was told that they are woven further out in the Kathmandu valley by ethnic Nepalis, not Bhutanese immigrants.
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Although it is eastern Nepal that is most associated with the weaving of dhaka cloth, I encountered a woman weaving it at Dhampus in the Annapurnas.
Dhaka cloth can be woven with the pattern threads inlaid along with a ground weft thread, or only using only pattern threads in the weft, which produces an effect like tapestry. Continue reading
Beyond Koranur near Ooty, Tamil Nadu, these Toda women embroidered black and red synthetic yarn onto cream fabric to produce designs that look from a distance as if they are woven into the fabric.
These striking fabrics are produced by the Toda women living in the Nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu. Glancing only briefly at them in Ooty shops I had presumed the patterns were woven, but Continue reading
This weaver had set up outside a shop in the bus park at Burtibang, a transport hub town in western Nepal. Her loom set-up was very similar to the backstrap looms used in Bhutan, Continue reading
Here are some of the students of Shree Lali Gurans Primary School showing off the locally-woven bags they use for their school books. Continue reading
Patola is created by tying and dying a pattern into both the warp and weft threads, which are laboriously aligned during the weaving process.
