In a few weeks I'll be travelling to Northern India so I've been looking at the textiles I can expect to see.
The task is huge because Rajasthan is a prolific producer of textiles of all kinds. Each district has its' own particular take on themes of embroidery, quilting and printing. Most of the everyday fabrics are cotton and "out of 862 spinning mills in India, 69 spinning mills are in Rajasthan" http://rajasthantextiles.com/
Embroidery
http://rajasthantextiles.com/ has been an invaluable source of information and highlighted just how much work goes on in Rajasthan. It lists 19 different sorts of embroidery. Principally they are decorated cloth; usually cotton but sometimes wool. Some types like Mochi originated as a chain stitch decoration for leather but has been adapted for fabric. A hooked awl is used as a "needle".
 |
| Mochi embroidery http://rajasthantextiles.com/ |
Sometimes the thread isn't quite what you might expect. In Badla embroidery metal is melted and passed through perforated steel sheets to makes wires which are then hammered to the required gauge. Plain wire is called badla and when it is wound round a thread it is called kasav. Smaller pieces are called mukaish.
Zari is also worked in metal and done by men who pass the skills on to their sons. They guard its' secrets closely. Zardozi is more elaborate and uses precious metal threads, beads and spangles.
 |
| Zari http://rajasthantextiles.com/ |
Dabka is an extremely detailed type of embroidery which is very labour intensive. Several people work on a piece at the same time because the work is very fine. A cord is couched into the fabric in the required pattern with zari thread. The images are usually taken from nature, flowers, birds and the like.
 |
| Dabka http://rajasthantextiles.com/ |
Salma (or nakshi) is considered a slightly inferior form of Dabka but it is much more glitzy and therefore essential to wedding outfits. Beads and so on are attached by a variety of stitches. Applique motifs are integrated and done exclusively by men.
 |
| Salmahttp://rajasthantextiles.com/ |
Sujani work comes from the east of Rajasthan and is used to make winter clothes for a climate that can be quite cold. An old cloth is used as a lining (three or four thicknesses) and a new cloth laid over the top and decorated with chain and running stitch depicting the natural world. This technique was used in earlier times for decorating leather for scabbards and pouches.
 |
| Sujani http://rajasthantextiles.com/ |
 |
| Sujani coat http://rajasthantextiles.com/ |
This is just a small selection of regional embroidery styles and themes.
Quilting
A razai (quilt) is usually made of cotton although the shell may sometimes be of velvet or silk. The filling is of carded cotton and is the equivalent of our duvet fillings. Carding allows all the impurities in the raw cotton to be discarded and pulls the cotton fibres until they are light and fluffy. A worker starts with a kilo of raw cotton and ends up with only about 100 grams of material suitable for use in a Jaipuri razai.
The outer shell is often decorated with block printing before being assembled into a razai. It is important that the cotton fibres are laid evenly so the warm air is trapped in the layers.
The filling is secured with hand quilting although the edges are usually stitched by machine nowadays.
 |
| rajasthanitextiles.com |
 |
| A Rajasthani razai www.quiltstudy.org www.quiltstudy.org |
Printed textiles
I will be visiting the Sanganer region of Jaipur which is famous for its textile industry. The printing industry in the area developed when craftsmen from Gujarat settled probably towards the end of the 17th century. Prior to that time textiles were produced but they were plain dyed.
There are probably about 500 block and screen printing units in Sanganer and 125 hand block printers. Many of these are craftsmen working in there own homes. The area has become renowned for the production of colourful dresses, bed linen, curtains and yardages of fabric. Much of what is produced is exported.
If there is an industry of block printing someone has the make the blocks and dye the fabrics. The dyers and block makers came from Sindh and Punjab and are mainly Muslim.
Block making is an extremely skilled occupation. The block itself is made in several stages
- the design is drawn on paper
- it is then transferred to wood
- the design is pierced through to leave an impression in the wood
- the unwanted areas are carved out
- the handle is attached to make the printing easier
The handle is very significant; it serves the same purpose as a signature and makes each block attributable to its' carver.
The outline blocks are made from an Indian teak called seesam because they need to be robust. Softer wood is used for the blocks which infill the outline shapes.
Nowadays a printing table is 1.5 meters wide, 6 meters long and is about 1.2 meters high. However, some older printers prefer the smaller, traditional tables. The printing tables are covered with over 20 layers of hessian then 3 or 4 layers of old cloth. These final layers are changed every time a new print is started.
The favoured Sanganeri prints are flower and petal designs. Many of these designs, whilst based in nature, are of flora the craftsmen have never seen.
 |
| Traditional Sanganeri designs resources.archedu.org |
 |
| A Sanganeri print www.india-travel.biz |
 |
| A modern printing table www.pbase.com |
There are other printing techniques as well including mud resist (akola) and azrakh which is a reverse resist process. There is also a lot of screen printing, hand, flatbed and rotary printing. This demonstrates the increasing industrialisation of the process as demand has gone global.
Different types of tying and dyeing have been used in Rajasthan for over 5000 years. http://rajasthantextiles.com/ Ancient people discovered that extracts from plants could be used to colour fabric and it was used as an embellishment. These dyes are still used today but increasingly man made dyes are used as well.
Indian craftsmen became very skilled at dyeing and their beautiful fabrics became a commodity for trade.
There are many designs that can be made using the tie dye technique. The most famous one from Rajasthan is Leheria (in Hindi this means waves). In the 19th and early 20th centuries the merchants of Rajasthan who were the dominant business community wore an elaborately tied and brightly coloured turban as a sort of uniform.. These turbans were decorated using the leheria tie dye technique.
The fabric needs to be quite fine like muslin, so the dye can penetrate the many layers. The long, narrow cloth which can be used for a turban or a sari, is rolled on the diagonal then tied at the required intervals. It is then immersed in dye and the result at its' most basic is a fabric with diagonal stripes.
 |
| Leheria resources.archedu.org |
The design can be further enhanced by untying and refolding from the opposite corner, tying once more and dyeing again. This pattern is called mothara. This name derives from the lentil shaped spaces that arise from this dyeing process, "moth" is lentil in Hindi.
 |
| Showing many dye repeats to make a complex pattern Gillow and Sentance, 1999 p 127 |
The illustration above shows the way the fabric is tied. When it goes to the retailer only a little of the fabric is unwrapped and the rest is left tied. This shows the customer that the article is genuine.
I think this is the most beautiful way to dye cloth and I hope I can see it on my holiday. If I do I'll not be able to resist buying some. Maybe I'll have to try it myself.
I think this is the most beautiful way to dye cloth and I hope I can see it on my holiday. If I do I'll not be able to resist buying some. Maybe I'll have to try it myself.
Gillow J. and Sentance B. 1999, World Textiles, Thames and Hudson, London.
http://rajasthantextiles.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment