Engineered Weave

Today we visited our first enginered weaving place. Before going there none of us would have expected that we would end up going to spend the day in one of the most farce deserted landscapes.

Some of the camels we saw from the auto.

Before we left we just knew that the place was quite near to Bikaner and we would spend  the whole day there. One of the guys who worked at the weave workshop  collected us with an big auto. Once out of Bikaner we soon started to realise that we wouldnt end up going to a village we used to know. The landscape got drier  and more sparse the further we went into it,  the more it filled with dried trees and interesting wildlife includeing a field of unt’s (camels) it was a really empowering landscape, the juxtaposition that in these tough dry conditions certain forms of nature could thrive the most.  the closer we got to our destination the more we started to see human life pop up too, with dried bricks ,thatched roofs. They went from dotted  isolated houses with no neighbours in the vast deserts to the lively villages then onto the not very  populated area ofKilchu which would contain our weaveing workshop.

Urmul Bhawan from outside.

Once arived at the place (Desert Craft,Urmul Bhawan) some workers welcomed us. We entered a big hall with all in all 20 weaving machines in it, but just two people working on two of them. They didn’t have any  current orders at the  present moment, so they just had to finish off some samples. Which they were straignt  away were able to show us. These samples were actually really interesting, because they sampled some completly new way of enginered weaving. The samples had been sent to them from Rangsutra which they had to analyse and then begin to produce to order all of which will start going into process in ten days time from now.

Learning from the craftsman.

Just briefly we were informed some outlines about the place and the working conditions for their 20 workers. The weave shed workshop is an independent  craft place. They have 20 weaving machines,some of the types ofweaveing machines are a twill machine,  a spinning machine and they  also dye their own yarns there. They get paid per meter of fabric only, The workers do not always have a reliable job as they work by order currently Rangsutra are the only dependable work they have for orders. This means the workforce don’t always have the option to have a daily job. This highlights to us the need for these skilled craft workshops to be communicated to people & for them to use and understand power of marketing to increase their orders as it is so easy for skills like this to be lost if they don’t have enough orders. Imagine a craft being lost because people are not educated in what it is and who is available to make it It is good they are working along Rangsutra who can supply them with that work.   

After they have shown and explained us the different ways of weaving  we had some lovely chai, we all thought it tasted smokey, it was great. While after Katherine spotted some fabrics and straight away had fallen in love with the beautiful colours. They had some spare, so she could buy some of it and then we all spotted weave samples we fell in love with. Four textile and fashion students are very easily swayed when it comes to fabric and clothes.  We were shown their stock room( which was dangerous teritory for our savings )and all of us ended up buying some nice material and shirts. Their designs were earthy elegant, minimalist patterns with strong colours. Aubergine purples, apple greens alot of stripes with pastel colours. Their garments emotive would be summed up as elegantly casual. The texture of these fabrics was flawlessly varied with the different weaves showing some truly innovative craftmanship.

One of the craftsman by weaving a sample.

Looking at there fabric samples.

The room where they dye ther yarns.

We ended our day sitting with the craftworkers in the plot of the farmers nearby the factory the heat had turned into a cooler breeze. We sat nearby their livestok of cows and goats listening to the sound of the baby goats having alot to say.Our heads buzzing with new knowledge of a craft of which its technicalitys can feel a little immense to those who havn’t experienced it before. We were left with  a feeling of passion for these peoples skill to be kept alive and for them to be able to have reliability within their work. Handlooms take perserverance, strong will and able bodiedness to create Engineered weave  as do the craft buissness’s  themselves  to flourish and stay strong within this Industry.

The fields before the rain.

A cute baby goat by the from the nearby farm.

Raining in the dessert