CRAFTS OF INDIA / JAMDANI / PROCESS

CRAFTS OF INDIA / JAMDANI / PROCESS

- First yarns to make the fabric are dyed. Once, only herbal dyes were used. Today the cheaper and readily available chemical dyes are used.

- Setting warp and weft are like any other handloom weaving process. Using a throw shuttle, the fabric is an open weave with plain weave structure that makes the sari very transparent.

- Traditional colours being white, black or grey, the borders are golden zari.

- Two weavers take up the work of adding the discontinuous supplementary weft for the decided pattern and motifs to be included in the fabric.

- Both cotton and zari threads are used and are thicker compared to the regular warp and weft threads. If the base thread is silk, then many a time cotton threads are used for the brocade designs. The sensational aspect of the Jamdani is that the motifs or pattern are woven into the fabric purely from memory with no use of sketches or tracing sheets. In order to stiffen the threads, starch is applied while the threads are still on the loom after every metre of the weave is woven.

- Whether figured or flowered, jamdani is a woven fabric in cotton, and it is undoubtedly one of the varieties of the finest muslin. It has been spoken of as the most artistic textile of the Bangladeshi weaver.

- Traditionally woven around Dhaka, Bangladesh, and created on the loom brocade, jamdani is fabulously rich in motifs.

- Jamdani is a fine muslin cloth on which decorative motifs are woven on the loom, typically in grey and white. Often a mix of cotton and gold thread is used