Dhabla Shwals of Bhujori (Weaving-1)

THE LOOM

Traditionally pit looms were used. Even now most of the families are using there traditional pit looms but some of the loom were lost during the earthquake.

After the earthquake the weavers got frame looms by the government.

PIT LOOM

Above the ground is the large frame consisting the basic structure of the loom, locally known as goda sar

Under this there is a pit which accommodates the treadles. The weaver sits in a narrow and shallow depression in the ground in front of the loom.

Goda sar (Pit loom)

Goda sar

Theses looms don’t have the regular warp beams and the length of the warp is stretched open this makes the loom quite area consuming so instead of being in the house the looms are placed outside the house under the shed in the varandas.Like the floor of the house the floor of the varanda the pit and the depression are plastered over with a mixture of clay and cow dung.

The heald shafts are called the ranch in the local language. They hang from the upper frame tied with the dori and is connected to the treadle placed in the pit.

The heald eyes are made at home using synthetic threads by making loops between the bands.  

Frame loom (khada sar)

Khada sar ( Frame loom)

LOOM AUXILARIES

The warp stretches under the loom and is fixed in front opposite to the weaver to a rod tied by two cords to the breast beam.

The woven cloth is wound around the breast beam which is of a square section and has a tenon projecting from both ends.

Tenon for tensioning warps

Warp length is stretched

Fastened to peg 

          Relaxing warp tension

These tenons rotate either in the wooden forks or in wooden rings let into the ground.

The square shaped breast beam has hole in the right side of the weaver and an iron rod is inserted through this

rod the function of the rod is to tighten or loosen the breast beam according to the need. 

As there is no warp beam in these looms the warp is stretched open till the length of the shawl to be woven and the rest of the warp is wound on a wooden log and hung on the top of the roof.(normally the warp length is equal to the length of 20 shawls).

Towards the end of the warp a rope is tied around it .

This rope runs first around a large peg driven into the earth and then alongside the breast beam where it is once more tightly stretched before being fastened to another peg.

When this bracing rope is loosened the warp tension is relaxed and the woven cloth can be wound around the breast.

The guiding comb consist of two wooden battons in the inner longitudinal grooves of which the reed is set, it is made up of bamboo.

Reed made of bamboo

The number of theses bamboo teeth constituting the reed corresponding to the number of the threads in the warp.The reed count is 20 dents per inch. And two ends per dent.

Healds

Healds are made of  threads, they don’nt use iron healds. The above picture is showing warp ends passing through a thread heald.

Lease Rod

Lease rods are also inserted to prevent warps from entangling,

it also make easy to find out the broken warp ends and join them. 

THE WORKING PROCEDURE

WARPING

The threads from the hanks are winded in

cones then the warping is done manually.

According to the no of ends in the warp cones

are taken and wounded around the peg stand.

One complete winding in a peg stand measures

 1 meter, hence, e.g. warp is to be set of 5 times

 around the peg.

Once warping is done, the ends were tied.

Usually warping is done for 20 shawls as a

time, hence after no. of ends and then length is

 set, it is ready for starching.

STARCHING

Ladies of the house helps in starching warps. Locally starch is extracted by boiling wheat grain with water.

Now the warp is soaked in this starch. After this, warps are opened and stretched for drying under the sun.

Warp ends are spread for drying

Brushing

A comb like brush (made up of plant root jharka and stem) is used to brush up the extra starch from the warp.

This prevents the warp threads to stick to each other.

Starching increases the strength of wool hence resulting less breakage during weaving.

Dhabla Shwals of Bhujori (the making of Dhabla Part 1)

The Making of Dhabla

THE WOOL

Wool  is the basic requirement of the dhabla weaving . It is interesting to notice that despite of both Rajasthan as well as kutch having a hot climate most of the time in the year, the weavers were engaged in doing the wool weaving rather then using some other lighter fabric like cotton, the reason behind this was the “availability” factor it reflects that in remote villages where people don’t have much resources (kutch and Rajasthan do not produce cotton), they have learned to make the best use of what they have .

Traditionally wool was extracted from the local sheep’s reared by the “rabbari” community.

These local sheep’s provides wool twice a year once before rain and the other during holi(end of winter) while rearing the season of  rearing is decided keeping in mind the need of the animal like during winters the animal itself needs a this layer to protect itself.

As already discussed earlier during earlier times the rabbari women themselves used to do the spinning of wool and hence used to produce coarser handspun woolen yarns. But during those days the picture used to be different as whatever amount of wool used to be generated it was sufficient enough to fulfill the domestic needs.

But slowly as the craft grew up the demand of wool too increased. and then the time came when the weavers felt a need of sourcing the wool from outside as the local sheep is not of the best quality, one local sheep gives only around 200-250gm wool.

Today the situation is different, now weavers basically use 4 types of yarns:

·         100%marino wool(from ludhiana)

·         Acrylic

·         Desi wool

·         Silk(from Bihar)

The desi wool is the local sheep wool this wool is collected from all over the Kutch and the Rajasthan region, then annually the people from the Rajasthan Wool Sangh come and they take this local wool to Rajasthan where it’s processing and spinning takes place. And this is how the wool is converted to hanks this desi wool comes in undyed natural state and is used as it is.

Marino wool is brought from Ludhiana annually during holi season. This is in the undyed hank form then according to there own color demand they dye it in their home. This is how they save the unnecessary wastage of this expensive wool.

Some 25 years back the government tried to import some Marino sheep and tried to rear them in Kutch and Rajasthan region keeping in mind the demand of wool

among the weaver community but that plan failed as he sheep couldn’t survive the hot climate.

Silk too is brought in undyed state from Bihar; they use different varieties like tussar, raw silk etc.

Acrylic is always in dyed state.

One hank weight around 200gm.

The cost price of wool is around 800-1000 rs per kg.

And of silk are 500-1500 rs per kg.

But it’s a fact that wool is in less demand in the local market then the acrylic because the use of 100%Marino makes the end product very costly for the local market.

DYEING OF WOOL

Traditionally both in Rajasthan as well as in Kutch undyed natural wool was used the natural color were black white brown and other natural colors. Slowly as people learned dyeing they started using natural coloring material to impart color to wool.

Today as the color demand has increased, people are using dyed wool, and the wool dyeing is happening using :-

Vegetable dyeing

In vegetable dyeing they use all natural ingredients to dye the wool like onion peel, lac, madder, harad,dates etc.

Vegetable dyed wool

Vegetable dye

Acid dyeing

This is the done using synthetic dyes .acid dyes are sourced from Bhuj and Ahmedabad.

Acid dyeing of Wool

Drying of wool hanks

PROCESS

First the water is taken in a huge container and it is boiled subsequently dye is added, dye could be both in cake a well as in powder form.

Once the dye bath is ready the wool which is in the hank form is mounted on two rods. The length of these is always greater then the diameter of the vessel. As a result of which the hanks keeps on hanging over the dye bath. Two men keep on rotating the rods after every 5 min so that every length and section of the hank gets equal and uniform contact with the dye.

Wool dyeing takes 10-15 min less then the silk dyeing.

For weft dyeing hanks are used but in case we are dyeing the warp then first warping is done.For color fixation they add acids like the sulphuric acid and the acetic acid. And keep the wool in the bath for 10 min.

So this total, process takes 35-40 min.

Primary colors are directly obtained the other variety of shades are obtained by mix dyeing.

Shade controlling is done by manipulating the time and the amount of dye used. Darker shades like maroon and black takes more time.

After fixation the hanks are taken out and are hanged outside so that the excess of water comes out .

then once its temperature becomes much colder it is washed with fresh cold water to remove the traces of the excess of color.

Vankar Nanji Bhai is one of the best dyers of the village. Every family has a dye master. Nanji Bhai is a very active weaver he attends all, the major craft fair in India and he won the national award for this craft in the year 2003.

 

Dhabla Shwals of Bhujori (the beginning)

Bhujori

Bhujori is a village which is around 20 km from bhuj in Kutch.

It took us around 30 min to reach the village.

The village is like any other village in India is not exactly

on the road, one needs to either walk through or take

same local conveniences like auto rickshaw, chagra or a times

 even camel cart to reach inside the village.

This takes around 10 min.

Reaching bhujori was easy but once we were in

Bhujori we had several other worries and curiosities

about the kind of place, people, sanitation and the most

important was communication problem which

we had faced earlier during our previous field visits

to the local gujrati villages, since none of us gujrati.

We went to an auto wala and asked him to take

us to some dhabla shawl weaver .and he left us in front

of a house which was on the road.

On entering the house, we saw spacious

courtyard, surrounding which were several rooms.

The varanda is made of locally available white clay

and cow dung.

Inside the compound, they had separate rooms for there living as well as for keeping the ready stock for

sale and for keeping raw material, like, wool, cotton and silk.

Beside these they have cattle area, mostly the village

rear cattle’s like cow, goat and sheep. 

Goat and sheep are reared by the rabaries.

First we went to the shop room where customer can

visit to buy dhabla. Inside the shop we met the care

taker shri. Rajesh Bhai. We introduced our shelves and

told him the reason of our arrival . He told us to wait

in the shop itself and he went out side.

Meanwhile we take a look on the different products in

the shop to gather an idea about dhabla.

They had made various products using extra weft

pattering in weaving, like shawls, blanket

Bags, cushioncovers, stoles, mufflers, etc.

Rajesh bhai introduced us to his father the Head

weaver of the family, Sri Vankar Vishram Valji . And that’s how we got an opportunity to know the history of bhujori as well as about dhabla.

History

Vishram ji Bhai told us that bhujori village is more  ancient than the town bhuj.

There community i.e the Vunkar community, which is

right now weaving dabla, is originally from Rajasthan where they were called Meghwal.

Then Vishram ji narrated us the whole story of how this migration happened.

According to him the Meghwal community in rajesthan were great followers of shri Ram Dev PirJi. Once Ram Dev Pir Ji came to kutch and that motivated the meghwals to follow him.

This is how for the first time meghwal come to kutch.but slowly, besides religion, trade also become another reason for the meghwal to give frequent visits to kutch. This vunkar community realized that kutchi villages badlly need weavers as there was no weaver community in kutch at that time.

Rabaries, Ahirs were the first one who came to kutch .

Rabbaries are mainly sheep

rearers and Ahir’s are the people

of lower caste.

Rabaries are master’s in

embroidery but lack the

knowledge of weaving, so this is

how the vunkar from Rajasthan

got good job of weaving in these

villages and slowly settled here.

Initially it is said that the rabbari

women used to rear the wool

from the local sheep.

while sitting idle in there houses,

they used to spin wool.

They used to give ready shawls to rabbari women,

they finely stitches the two parts together.

The dhabla traditionally had very few color’s i.e. white

black, maroon and brown at times.

Earlier only natural dyeing used to happen.

The body was predominantly white, while black and

maroon extra weft pattering and at times warp wise border with a black and maroon used to

happen most of the times the patterning was very

less. Traditional dhabla was very heavy .For

blankets they used 2 ply yarn and for shawl single ply

is used.

It is said that the rabaries men used to drape the shawl tightly and the weaving used to be so tight that even water doesn’t penetrate during rainfall. Men used to wear dhabla throughout the day. For women these shawls were called “luri”.

                                    It is of single ply and were relatively lighter, predominantly black in color and lesser extra weft pattering than dhabla. It is mainly of plain weave. The rabbaries themselves used to do elaborate adornment by using bhandni .They make red dots on black body then they used to do extensive embroidery over it.

These luri were used by newly wed. Young girls

eligible for marriage used to embroider luri for

themselves, they do lots of mirror work, thread work.

Luri’s were longer than dhabla since women used to drape it around themselves like sarees, its length is

around 130 inches and width of 48 inches.

Traditionally the loom width used to vary from

24 inch-26inch. 

Even today the rabari women do their traditional embroidery works which another popular craft

happening in the village .

Name of the embroideries are

> Ahir

> Muthva

> Sankari

> Kantha

> Chari

> Lace work

> Mirror work

> Appliqué,

Dhabla woven for ahir community were more

colored. they had 7 colors  like, red. Black rust, pink,

orange, green, blue, black.

It was only after the year 1965 bhujori

gained fame for its craftand the credit goes to

At the request of the craft sang manager of gujrat

prabha Ben shah from Bombay.

Mr.Tripari Baiwas Mrs. Prabha Ben came to kutch and

saw this amazing craft happening, She made weavers realize that this craft has much

more potential to grow and not just a tool of

fulfilling the domestic need of the village.

Lizard on a dung cake

Dhabla

Weaving of dhabla

Dhabla Shwal (100 % Wool)

Daily routine of a village women

House wall decorated with mirrors and mud.

Interior of  Kutch houses

Embroidery

Embroidery done by Rabbari women

Rabbari Women

A common view at Bhulori ( Warping Process)