Esmae was in India recently, and she shared these photos with me; I got her permission to show them to you. Do feel free to add anything you know about Indian weaving/Sari/silk, please, or questions for Esmae.
Esmae says: "A few pics from India. Close to Chennai we visited a model village which had traditional houses from the Southern states of India. One of them was a weaver's house from Kanchipuram, and there was a weaver in residence."
"... he was weaving a sari, so it would have been approx 115 or 120 cms wide; I'm not sure what the sett was but those saris are closely woven. Looking at the [counter-balance] loom I noticed that the 4 shafts appeared to work as 2 pairs: 1 and 2 always together and 3 and4 together, doing plain weave; someone suggested that that arrangement might allow for a closer sett without the heddles and the warp ends becoming tangled."
"I love the way so much of life and commerce in India happens in the street, even mending."
I love the weaver's outfit, too. Very elegant and other-worldly/olden-days-ish.
Thank you for these, Esmae, and I sure hope you get a chance to visit India again to find out more. (And next time, possibly with my wee silk shopping list? Just joking; you saw my stash room!)
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