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Jammu & Kashmir Fabric |
Kashmiri is famous for Pashmina, Shahtoosh and woollens. Among other fabrics
silk and tweek are also very famous fabrics of Kashmir. When
you are in Kashmir for shopping try to buy some of these to make your travel
to Kashmir a success.
Some of the exquisite shopping items produced by Kashmiri people are
:
Namdas
These colorful floor coverings are far less expensive are
made from woollen and cotton fibers which are manually pressed
into shape. Chain stitch embroidery in woollen
and cotton thread is done on these beautiful rugs. |
Chain Stitch and Crewel Furnishings
The stitching is done in a different pattern in these embroideries.
The chain stitch, be it in wool, silk or cotton, is done by hook rather than
any needle. The hook is referred to as ari and the hook work covers a much larger
area than needle work in the same amount of time. The whole embroidery is executed
on white cotton fabric, pre-shrunk by the manufacturers. The intricate work of
each piece lies in the size of the stitches and the yarn or fabric used. The
art of crewel embroidery
can result in creative wall hangings.
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Crewel is similar to chain stitch, but here
the motifs, mainly stylish flowers, do not cover the entire base
and the background is not embroidered upon. Wool is almost invariably
used in Crewel work and colour ways are not as elaborate as in
chain stitch. They make excellent household furnishings being
hand or machine washable.
Silks, Tweeks
Sericulture and tweed weaving are one of the major industries in Kashmir,India with
departments of the state government. The state government closely monitors the
whole process. Interestingly, just as little or no raw-material for tweed comes
from Kashmir, the same way almost no weaving and printing of silk is done in
the state. However, the cocoon raised in Kashmir is of the superior quality,
producing an extremely fine fiber and any silk woven from this thread or fiber
becomes known. The fineness of the yarn lends itself particularly well to the
weaves known as ‘chinon’ and ‘crepe de chine’, in addition
to the universally recognized silk weave.
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Shawls
There are three fibers from which the Kashmiri shawls are made - Pashmina, wool
and shahtoosh. The embroidery of Kashmir on woollen shawls has made the
Kashmiri shawls very popular because of the embroidery. A fine shahtoosh shawl
passes
through a finger ring.
Pherans
This is costume is somewhere between a coat and a cloak. This is absolutely fitted
to the Kashmiri way of life, being loose enough to allow the necessary kettle
of live coals which is carried around in much the same way as a hot water bottle. |
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The men’s pherans are made of tweed or coarse
wool; while women’s pherans are somewhat more stylized,
are most probably made of raffel, which boasts of ari or hook
embroidery at the throat, cuffs and edges.
Wool woven in Kashmir is raffel and is 100%
pure. Many kinds of embroidery are worked on shawls – ‘sozni’ or
needlework is generally done in a panel along the sides of the
shawl. Motifs, usually abstract designs or stylized paisleys
and flowers are worked in one or two, occasionally three colors,
all subdued. Another type of needle embroidery is known as Papier
Mache work. This is done either in broad panels or either
side of the breadth of a shawl or covering the entire surface
of a stole. Well-known ari or hook embroidery, on floral motifs
is finely worked in concentric rings of chain stitch.
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