WEAVER'S WORLD / NARAYANPET / TEXTILES -2

NARAYANPET

The process of making the saree

The Saree making process involves degumming or separation of gum from the natural yarn by dipping the yarn in boiling water. Then it is bleached, so that the yarn loses is natural colour and would readily acquire the vegetable dye colour. The stirring in the vat while the yarn is in coloured(vegetable dye mixed) boiling water, spreads the colour uniformly on the yarn.

Washed again and dried in shade for fastness of colour to be retained, the yarn is spun into threads. Threads are laid out on the warp (length wise lay) and rolled onto small sticks for the weft (breadth wise weaving).

A weaver can make 25-30 sarees from one beam of warp. It would take more than a month to complete weaving of one beam. Narayanpet handloom sarees are traditionally woven in the interlocked-weft technique.

Geographical Indication(GI) Status has been awarded to the Narayanpet Saree in April 2013. The GI status recognises the valuable contribution made by these weavers in keeping alive a cultural heritage of India and is a big relief to the beleaguered weavers of Narayanpet wary of the duplication of their effort or use of their name for spurious and inferior sarees.