The Fabric Industry

Yesterday Violet and I went to visit a friend of her old boss’ who works in the fabric industry.

First, I need to say that I did not take any pictures. It seemed horrendously atrocious to do so. Luckily, he gave us a book of information, so I took some pictures of that and I’ll post them.

In terms of our adventures:

We got to see a hand loom in operation. To me, it seemed more like a full body loom. You sit down in a certain spot, and operate the loom with both your hands and feet. So on the loom are a gazillion and a half strings that are perpendicular to the person who is weaving. To create the embroidery, the weaver just sends the thread back and forth in the correct order. However, there is this whole system that manages it for him. It’s almost like a computer. So there are these punch cards that tell the loom what pattern to make (not operated by power, though, entirely by person), and then the strings move up and down according to the pattern on the card. There are at least 200 of these cards, and then they switch for every row of thread. When the pattern repeats itself, it literally just goes back to the beginning of the cards.

Afterward, we got to look at some of the finished product. Since the shop specializes in traditional Tibetan patterns, we saw those, and they were beautiful. One interesting thing about them is that many of the patterns cannot be changed in any way including color.

We also saw some scarves designed by her friend, Sribhas Supakar. They were really beautiful and intricate, and it was evident that a lot of work is needed to make them. In fact, they take very long to make. To make 2 scarves (like shawls), it would take one person 8 days. To make 4 mufflers (scarves), it would take one person 8 days.  

This is a picture of a scarf that he designed:

How do you design a sari or fabric so that it can be made on one of these looms?

First you draw it on graph paper. Eventually it becomes enlarged such that you see the pattern and how the loom should be for literally every thread. Then you would do the whole computer thing and then finally the final product of creating the scarves. 

Here are some other pictures:

 Some Oriental birds (non traditional design- he made it).

 A copy of a Moghal painting.

 A curtain he designed. It is a tree.

He also does other work, including things that are sold on the international market, which were cool to see. There were all of these crazy fabrics. He had one that looked a lot like bubble wrap, one that was made entirely out of peacock feathers (super-expensive), one that looks like crocodile skins.

Afterward, had dinner with his family. They were all nice and the food was delicious! I was so happy to have paneer and paratha. Nom nom nom!

Also, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to know more information, just post/email your questions!