Handmade Ethiopian Silk Scarf
The scarf is made using cotton and silk, cotton as the warp
and silk as the weft. The silk used is hand spun silk. Silk has been there in
Ethiopia from the past 12 years. Three varieties of silk is used namely Eri
silk, Tussar silk, and Mulberry silk.
Eri silk originally comes from North-East India and some
parts of China and Japan. The texture of the eri silk fabric is fine, dense and
coarse and it stays warm in winters and cool in summers because of thermal
properties of the fabric. It easily blends with cotton and wool.
Eri silk worm and Bombyx Mori are the only two completely domesticated silkworms.
Mulberry silk comes from worms called the Bombyx Mori. It is
widely cultivated in northern India, northern China, Korea, Japan and eastern
parts of Russia. This silk has a smooth and soft texture and has a natural
shine.
Tussar silk comes from India. It is largely produced in
Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Chattisgarh. It is less durable
because it has shorter fibers.
Ethiopian Cotton is grown in large state farms and is the
fifth largest agricultural product of Ethiopia.
The process starts with the dying of the yarns. Eri silk,
Mulberry silk threads and cotton yarn are dyed in natural dyes such as coffee,
cutch- heart wood, ivy, pomegranate, indigo, logwood, African marigold, madder,
henna, basil wood, safflower, onion and meskel flower.
These dyed yarns are then woven into scarfs on the
traditional looms.
I personally had not seen such a material before. It is very different from the Kashmiri scarfs that I usually see which are generally soft, thin and very warm. On the other hand, the final scarf that comes out of the loom is one of a kind. The fabric is coarse, strong, warm and durable.
Bibliography:
No comments:
Post a Comment