Category: Journal
-
Pen or block? Read the label before the pattern
By Porter Lang Start with a question you can put to any seller: was this painted or printed? Kalamkari covers both. The word itself means “work done with a pen”, Sahapedia says, and refers to painted and block-printed cotton and silk from the Coromandel Coast. Wikipedia describes two styles, one in Srikalahasti and one in…
-
Embroidered on the wrong side
By Ines Keane The embroiderer of a phulkari works from the back of the cloth. She cannot see the pattern she is making. That one fact, stated in Wikipedia’s article on phulkari and repeated by a coaching-site explainer, explains most of what follows: the long and short stitches, the shadowy sheen on the front, and…
-
Zardozi: the word is settled, the history is not
By Rafe Calder The word is the easy part. Wikipedia says zardozi comes from Classical Persian, combining zar or zarin, gold, with dozi, sewing. A research site on Indian handicrafts, Gaatha, derives it from the Urdu zar and doz, gold and handwork. Either way it means gold embroidery. After that, the sources part company. Four…
-
Fifteen centimetres or twenty? Taking a kangri apart
By Porter Lang Check the diameter first, because the sources do not agree. Wikipedia’s article on the kanger gives about 6 inches (15 cm). Garland Magazine says about six inches, or 150 mm. A travel guide on a Kashmir tourism blog says about 20 cm. If you are ever sizing one against a coat, treat…
-
Six months, or three years: how long a patola takes depends on who you ask
By Ines Keane Start with the time. A museum run by a Patan weaving family says one sari takes four to six months if two people work five days a week. A travel blog from 2016 says a complete silk sari takes three years. A shop’s blog says six months to a year. None of…
-
Guaranteed to bleed: the checked cloth from a fishing village
By Isla Quinn Red into blue into green. Wash it and the colours run into each other. That was the point, by the end. Start in the village The BBC traces Madras check to the fishing village of Madrasapattinam, later Madras and now Chennai. Local fishermen and farmers, it says, wore a hand-woven muslin in…
-
Kantha: what a Bengal household did with a worn-out sari
By Ines Keane Turn a kantha over and the story is in the stitches. Small, even, in a line, never overlapping. The Cooper Hewitt museum calls this the kantha stitch, and says the word covers a craft of reusing worn cotton to make household textiles. It is, in its plainest form, a winter blanket. What…
-
Knots per square inch: a plain guide to the Bhadohi carpet belt
By Porter Lang Start with the loom. A hand-knotted carpet from the Bhadohi-Mirzapur region of Uttar Pradesh is made on a vertical wooden loom, according to the makers’ own application for a protected name. Thick cotton and woollen yarn forms the warp, and the pile is tied on knot by knot. A good deal of…
-
Seven seeds, two crops and a bean aged by the wind
By Ines Keane Most coffee is judged on how fresh it is. One Indian coffee is judged on how it was left to age. Monsooned Malabar is spread in open warehouses while the monsoon blows through, and the beans come out larger, paler and gentler. First, how the coffee got there. The seeds The Coffee…
-
Tarakasi: how a lump of silver becomes lace
By Porter Lang Start with the kit. A wire-drawing machine. A twisting tool and a needle. Die cuts for circles and tiny dots. A flame small enough to guide through a tube. Brushes, and a polishing tool with a brass tip. Silver filigree from Cuttack, called tarakasi, is a craft you can follow by its…