BENGAL WEAVE
Jamdani textiles, synonymous with West Bengal, are woven in a slow, painstaking way on a wooden
pit loom with fine warp and weft yarns, and supplementary weft yarns to create delicate motifs. The
supplementary yarns are wound around small bobbins and are manually interlocked into the warp. The
ground fabric is woven by throwing the shuttle through the shed of the warp yarns. Traditional Jamdani
motifs feature different forms of flowers, flowing vines, leaves, a lattice and geometric patterns.
The Jamdani weaving technique offers immense scope for experimenting with fabric textures and patterns,
and exploring these possibilities master weavers create beautiful ethereal weaves. In some weaves as the
supplementary yarn used for the motifs is thicker than the yarn used for the ground fabric, the motifs
appear opaque and as if floating on the ground fabric! The weave featured above has been created by
Ramanand Basak
.
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