Kanchipuram Saris

Kanchipuram is a city near Chennai (Madras) in Tamil Nadu. Kanchipuram produces brocaded silks of superb texture, color and lustre, known as kanchipuram Sari.

The raw material for Kanchipuram sari is silk and Zari. The silk is brought in from Bangalore and Zari threads for brocading come from Surat Gujarat.

The main items of production are the silk saris with the solid brocaded borders ('korvai'). The silk is woven on a throw shuttle pitloom with a drawbox harness. Designs and patterns are woven with extra warp and extra weft and are worked into the body of the fabric by means of an indigenous device known as the 'adai' which fulfils the same function as the jacquard.

Kanchipuram Saris in the south Indian style have a pallav and/or borders, that contrast in color to the main field of the sari.

Green, blue, red, yellow, mashroom, orange or purple colors are commonly used with contrasting borders.

On the borders, small flowers, mangoes and geometrical motifs are woven with zari. Pallu is also highly decorative part of the sari. Nowadays, artificial zari is used commonly.

Kalamkari

The Coromandal coast of India was once a world renowned source of fine hand painted textiles, fortunately its textile tradition is survived in AP temple town of Kalahasti where the paintings of scenes from the Hindu Epics on cotton cloth was revived by the establishment of a training school by the All India Handicrafts Borad in 1958.

On Kalamkari cloth, printers and painters use both natural and chemical dyes. Though indigo is found in abundance in the area, but their red shades came from chemical alizarin.

Kalamkari is practiced in east of India at Masulipatnam in AP and Kalahasti in South. In Masulipatnam, the agents that control the patterning are traditionally applied with a kalam (pen). Machine loomed cloth known as Kora is bleached by repeated immersion in a solution of goat or buffalo dung and frequently rinsing in a river or a canal. The cloth is then mordanted in a myrobalan solution, to which is added fresh buffalo milk to prevent the spreading of the dye or application. Outline printing of the floral, bird and animal patterns is done with black (made of iron salts and gum) or with red ( alum with gum) or with both colours then follows the washing and the cloth is left to dry for two or three days. After washing, the cloth is scalded in a vat of alizarin and madder solution, enhancing and fixing the red patterning and removing the myrobalan and gum juice. Bleaching then takes place, leaving a white cloth patterned in red and black. Cleaning, bleaching and starching follows prior to the painting of the cloth in yellow and green colors. Yellow is achieved by boiling myrobalan flowers in water and by applying the solution with a simple Kalam made from a short pointed bamboo stick whose dye reservoir is a felt pad bound with string. Pressure on the myrobalan soaked pad allows the artist to control the release of the dyeing agent. the dyes are fixed permanently by dipping the cloth in an alum solution, after which it is part bleached in cow dung solution to give the yellow an attractive clarity and color. Finally the cloth is soaped and washed.

Unlike the Masultipatnam cloth the hangings from kalahasti are decorated entirely by free hand use of Kalam pen. Machine loomed cotton cloth is washed to remove starch and soaked in myrobalan solution ready to take the black dye. Once spread on the ground, or on a low wooden bench the cloth is ready to be sketched on by the artist. Oulines of figures and designs are first drawn freehand with charcoal sticks made of tamarind twigs. The kalam for fine linework is a pointed bamboo stick, six to eight inch long swaddled at the sharpened end with welt or wool that is tied to the cane by a net of strings. The felt pad holds the dyestuff, which may be released by slight varirations of finger pressure to run down to the point of kalam and on the cloth as the designs are drawn. Black outlines are painted with the kalam using a solution of salts of iron. An alum solution is painted as infill with a bamboo kalam. The cloth is then immersed into a solution of pobbaku leaf, surudu root bark and majistha root and the mordanted areas are coloured red. Double mordanting of figures and patterns with alum creates tones of red and the cloth is then bleached in a solution of cow's dung. The final colurs of yellow, blue and green are painted on the cloth as infill and detail with a kalam. Yellow is obtained by painting a myrobalan flower solution as areas pre-mordanted with alum, blue by applying indigo mixed with a little alum and green by coating yellow areas with indigo.

In Kalahasti, the subjects of illustration are either traditional takes from Hindu epics, or modern as scenes from company logos. Also there is a religious code for the decoration of Kalamkari fabrics. All gods are blue, female characteristics are golden yellow, bad characters and demons are red.

Jamdani

These are fine transparent cotton muslin with discontinuous supplementary weft motifs woven in heavier cotton threads.

Jamdani weaving methods employs two weavers sitting side by side at a simple handloom who add every discontinuous  supplementary weft motif separately by hand , using individual spools of threads called tilis. No special warp lifting mechanisms are required.

In terms of color and design, contemporary Jamdanis fall into six categories: those with

1. Natural coloured, unbleached cotton grounds with bleached white cotton supplementary work.

2. Pastel coloured grounds with white supplementary work.

3. Dark coloured grounds with white supplementary work.

4. Any of the other, with coloured threads, either of similar or contrasting tones.

5. Any of the above combinations with 'zari' supplementary threads as part of the mix.

6. Dark grounds with only zari supplementary work.

The only town in India where traditional Jamdanis are still made is Tanda in Uttar Pradesh. Here finely patterned white Jamdanis usually completely covered with vines and foliate patterns, have been created since at least the nineteenth century. Today most Tanda Jamdanis are woven into dupattas or yardage, although sais of this type were most popular among wealthy old women and widows.

Benaras Brocades

Alipura is traditionally the district of Varansi, where the famous Benaras brocades are woven, brocades are textiles woven with warp and weft threads of different colors.

The Benaras brocades are woven in silk, with profuse use of metal threads on the 'pallaus' and the field of the sari.

The weavers are muslims, known as karigars. The brocades are woven in workshops known as karkhanas which are a series of interconnected rooms, usually on the first floor. Almost every square inch of ground space in the room is taken up with looms, and above each loom hangs a crowded arrangement of strings leading down to the loom heddles. the weavers work in artificial light, in a calm and quiet atmosphere which is conducive to the concentration needed for the weaving of such complicated designs.

The Zari thread known as kalabathun consists of finely drawn gold, silver or base metal thread, wound round a silk thread. Silk traditionally come from Bengal, Central Asia and Italy, but now comes from either Malda, in Bengal or from Kashmir or Japan.

The most famous brocaded textile of Varansi is called Kinkhab woven with coarse but durable silk called Matka which is heavy enough to take brocading with gold or silk thread. A silk and zari work brocade of lighter material and less heavy ornamentation is known as 'pot-than' or 'bafta'. The name for brocades without any metal work is called Amru.