Patolas and Resist Dyed Fabrics of India

In India's legendary heritage of textiles, few are as highly prized as patola, the double ikat silk fabric, in which both warp and weft are separately tie-dyed before weaving to create patterns of unmatched richness and subtelty.

Patan, the ancient capital of Gujarat has been the centre for patola for many centuries.

In Gujarat they are traditionally worn by Hindus, Jains and Vohra Muslims. A well to do bride invariably wears a patola today. Throughout India, Patolas have become a symbol of wealth and family lineage, transcending the boundaries of Religion and community.

The complicated patola weaving procedure is naturally labourious and tedious and it is possible to complete only about 25 cm of cloth a day.

To begin with, skeins of silk are opened and wound on reels. Once this is done, eidth threads are plied together by lightly twisting them and feeding them into another hand reel. This twisting prepares the silk for the next stage- bleaching.

Bleaching is achieved by soaking the hanks of silk for a minute in boiling water mixed with soda ash and soap. Once dry, the silk is filled into bobbin and wound onto a charkha. It is then twisted and transferred to a smaller charkha. From this warp and weft are prepared.

Befor the tyeing and dyeing can start, the pattern is first traced onto a graph paper.

The warp is assembled with the help of round iron or steel pegs covered in white muslin, protruding horizontally from the wall. The number and arrangement of the pegs can be altered to suit the desired length of the warp. Twelve wooden bobbins on stand, containing the eight ply silk, ar placed in two rows in front of the pegs. The warp is spread on a rectangular wooden frame and sectioned by grouping the threads accorging to the pattern.

Once the wapr and weft are ready on the frames, the tyeing begins, always from the right with the use of thread or old cloth, exact measurements of the portions being tied are taken continuously. Of all the phases of the weaving process, this is the most delicate and often it is done by women. As different portions of the yarns are tied, it is removed from the frames and dyed. This process continues until every color in the pattern appears in the yarn.

The dyeing, traditionally achieved with vegetable colors, but now increasingly with chemical dyes, is carried out by both men and women. Hanks of silk are usually left soaking in cold water for a day or two before each dyeing to ensure that the colors are absorbed evenly. The yarn often needs to be vigourously rubbed by hand for it to be properly soaked. After the final color has been dyed, the yarn is yet once more returned to the frame. Now the entire pattern becomes clearly visible. The weft is separated and taken back onto bobbins for weaving.

The patola loom is very simple and tools are hand made from bamboo. The loom does not have a foot paddle but a handle by which threads are manipulated. It is placed at right angle to the floor and two people are required for weaving. The first stands on the right and passes the shuttle to the left and the second sits in front of the loom and passes the shuttle from left to right. While at the loom, the weavers hold the weft threads on both sides, constantly checking for a missmatch in the pattern between warp and weft. The process is painstakingly slow. Little wonder then that it takes roughly 20 days to finish a sari about five meters long.

There are some 10 basic patterns, mainly of plant, zoomorphic and geometrical motifs. While most motifs can be traced to traditionaly forms, some relatively modern ones certainly evolved in response to the demands of the export market. In a weaving technique so complicated, it is true that geometrical motifs should predominate. These were used in variation between the border and the body pattern. The designs most commonly found include chhabdi bhat (the basket pattern), Fulvari bhat (flowering pattern), ratan chowk bhat ( jewel mosaic), Paan bhat (pipal leaf pattern), akhrot bhat (walnut motif), nari kunjar (women and elephant), popat kunjar ( parrot and elephant), wagh bar hathi bar (tiger and twelve elephants), maharas bhat ( women dancing with sticks in hand)

Block Printing, Sanganeri saris

Block printed saris have been created throughout India over the past few centuries, but the Western region has remained the primary area of production. The most important centres of block printing are Sanganer, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Jetpur, Rajkot, Porbandar and Bhavnagar in Gujarat.

The village of Sanganer near Jaipur has been a major centre for very fine block-cutting and printing, and has produced fine muslin saris printed on both sides of the fabric. This elaborate work needs expertly cut mirror images blocks to print the usually asymmetrical Mughal style designs. Although Sanganer is well known for producing fine block printed textiles on off white or pastel backgrounds, today a wide range of textiles are produced with both dark and pale grounds.

A strong Mughal aesthetic dominates the region's printed sari designs. Borders and end pieces consist of repeated bands of undulated twines (bel) of various sizes. Field are often covered with a repeat design varying from small simple dots or geometric shape to large complex buta and kalga.

Cloth printing blocks are usually made of 'teak' or 'seesum'. These dyes are printed on a textile by means of a relief covered block( a different block for each color). In India, the blocks are usually 23-30 cm (9-12") square in size.

Temple Saris

A more traditional variation of the Kornad Sari is called Temple sari. Technically, a temple sari is any sari woven for and donated to a temple deity in any part of South Asia. Originally it had to be perfectly executed, although it has always reflected what the donor could afford. Today however all the wide bordered Kornad Saris have become popularly known as temple saris. One type of traditiona Kornard sari is the interlocked weft woven sari, that has its two borders and fields of equal width. The borders are in the usual unembellished style but in the type most often called a temple sari, the entire length of narrow field is covered with fine quality supplementary weft zari patterning woven as a series of weft wise rows which includes such motifs as elephant, peacocks, double headed eagles and foliate floral vines. The motifs are typical of Tamil Nadu south Andhra Pradesh graphic and two dimensional representations are quite unlike the more three dimensional appearance of the northern Indian Patterning typical of Benaras

Tangail saris

Tangail Sarees

Although Jamdanis were traditionally woven by Muslims, Hindu weavers who moved from Tangail during partition helped developoing India's modern Jamdani industry. They were probably originally trained in the pre partition government school that was founded at Tangail in 1930s in an effort to revive the then disapperaring craft of Jamdani weaving. Significantly West Bengal Jamdanis are often called Tangail Jamdani and they typically have many small buti woven throughout the field often diagonally. They are now woven in many areas of West Bengal in such villages as Dhatrigram, Samudragarls, Saithia, Phulia and Shantipur. Those from Shantipur have black or dark blue bodies with brightr buti. Today the Tangail Jamdanis have developed a style of its own with a distinctly Modernist Hindu Aesthetic and it is now acquiring the vibrant colours of southern India and bold animal designs of Andhra Pradesh. Many are also made in silk instead of cotton because silk is easier and faster to weave and weavers are usually paid more for weaving silk fabric than cotton.