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.