Carpet Weavers in India

The wool yarn is wrapped, knotted & cut in one quick motion.

Naturally dyed yarns from Ibyx goats, sheep and silk worms are used in the carpets.

Dyed skeins are wound into sausage-shaped balls.

The finished carpet is washed with water & salt then left out in the sun to dry for up to 2 weeks.

More Turbans in India

This collection of turbans is in the Cultural Museum in Udaipur. Sorry about the quality of the images. My point 'n' shoot camera couldn't handle the low light or the shiny display cases.

Turbans in India

In India it is amazing what a length of cloth says about it's wearer

Tanvi Kant, Textile Jeweller

Tanvi Kant, a textile jeweller, makes neck art out of old saris having started with one of her mother's. Her parents were born in India but Tanvi has lived all her life in England. We met up with her in Ahmedabad where she was about to begin an 8-week artist residency to develop her designs, meet local crafts people and make connections. It is a UK Art Council programme that plans to develop exchanges with Indian artists & crafts people going to the UK.

We sat on the verandah of the Darbargadh Poshina heritage hotel we were staying in while Tanvi talked about her work and showed us some samples.

Rope making in Patan

Mashru Cloth, Patan, India

Our tour group watched as Mashru cloth was woven with a pit loom

Skeining the hand dyed rayon & cotton thread

The double woven cloth is starched to make it smooth & shiny

Patan Patola, India

I didn't finish telling you about the master weavers who make double ikat silk textiles. Here father and son (an architect) work side by side ...

on a traditional silk sari pattern that they can weave 8" to 9" per day.

This sari took 5 people 6 months to make. No wonder the family members travel all over the world to demonstrate their amazing skill, www.patanpatola.com

Wedding Garments

Members of our tour party are dressed in heavily embroidered wedding garments.

Mutwa Embroidered Blouse

Another Mutwa embroidered blouse in the kungeroo style.

While visiting a village in the Kutch area we attended a workshop where we were shown how to use metallic thread to work the 2 main stitches shown on this blouse.

Embroidery from the Kutch

Metallic tape embroidered over a tie dyed fabric on this head shawl.

Newspaper is used as a pattern

Embroidery from the Kutch, India

More embroidered blouses from Kutch, Gujarat in the Guj style.

Shisha mirrors, buttonhole stitch, satin stitch, knots & pompoms.

Mutwa Embroidery

Mirror glass is cut to shape with scissors for shisha work.

A blouse embroidered in the Guj style where there are woven braids across the front.

A blouse in the Kungeroo style. It is usually made in one piece & is fully embroidered with a larger range of stitches. It is often made for a daughter-in-law.

Rabari & Bandhani Embroidery, NW India

We visited a Rabari textile collector in his home.

Next we had a workshop with the National Award '85 Winner who does Bandhani embroidery, Aminaben Ismail Khatri . We learnt how to tie minute circles of cloth in patterns. She now employs 500 women to tie lengths of silk & cotton in her designs. The image shows a sack of tied lengths of cloth ready for dyeing.

The tied cloth is dyed.

At this stage it may be re-tied to build up the design before being dyed again. This process can be repeated many times depending on how complex the design is.