Kullu Shawls

Kullu is a place in Himachal Pradesh. It is famous not only for entertainment and beautiful sceneries but also for its traditional textiles named Kullu Shawls throughout India. Kullu shawls are pure woollen shawls having traditional designs.

Kullu shawls are made from woollen yarns. The fibres for this yarn are collected from sheep and then sorted out (near front legs and neck, best quality of wool is found on a sheep) according to color, length, quality and feel. The fibres are processed by domestic methods. Under these methods, the fibres are sorted, scoured  and radical impurities are removed and then these fibres are dyed by tub dyeing method. Then the fibres are spun into yarn by charkha and Takhli. Now-a-days few quantities of silk and cotton are also used for borders, pallau and centre motifs. Somethimes greige fibres are also used to produce produce patterning and motifs.

Though Kullu shawls are produced in different colors like china blue, olive green, maroon coffee etc. but beauty of Kullu Shawls stands only in black shades.

Because Kullu Shawls are not made by big machines, this is an art of hand woven technology. Sometimes Zig-zag effects are also produced.

In Kullu shawls small diamonds, small dots, small squares, small triangles, plus marks etc. are found on the body of the shawls. there may be small lines of patterning on the selvedge or border with matching colors.

Kullu shawls are of woollen yarn of high count and shape just like 10s of cotton yarn. This is optimum to have better quality.

carpets and floor coverings

Panipat is famous for carpets. Regarding the origin of carpets there is no proper clue available in history about when carpet manufacturing had started in India, but it is sure that thousands of years agao, the Rishi Munis used an Ashram Cloth material which is a part of carpt of ancient days. In 15th century, carpets were available in well developed homes.

Though carpets are known as woollen carpets but woollen yarn alone is not able to produce perment structure while working without the help of cellulosic fibres, that is why carpets are woven by woollen and cotton yarns. Carpets of 15th century show that in warp wool is used and in weft cotton is used. It is a style of 'dari'. Now-a-days different types of fibres are used in carpets eg woollen, silk or cotton carpets etc.

Carpets are woven with the help of different techniques. Some of which are given below:

1. Loom carpets are woven in 'dari' style, means hundred percent warping of cotton threads and 100% woollen threads as weft yarn with extra weft yarn for loom weaving.

2. Few carpets are woven with the help of latest machinery, some computerised techniques are used for lifting the yarn and loading the yarn to produce carpet effects.

3. Hand tufted carpets are latest carpets now-a-days. Such carpets are woven with the help of tufting gun. To produce such carpets the base fabric is cotton fabric in dense weave. These carpets are produced by tufting guns according to required design.

Generally loop carpets are produced in very dark and medium colors and light colors are mainly used in tufted carpets. Light, medium and dark all types of colors are used but it depends upon taste of country to country eg. carpets of Germany are usually in medium colors and dark colors, Americans never like purple dark colors while Australians use light colors.

In India floral designs are used very much while in Western countries ( European ) geometric designs and mural designs are liked. Commonly in America the designs of latest inventions are produced on the carpets eg. trains, buses, sea coasts, dinosaur etc. Though carpet is a very much expensive style of weaving as well as precious traditional textile of India.

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.