I love Ikat. My fascination with Ikat is double hued. Like a romance in it’s early stages of exuberance I was drawn to it’s vibrant patterns and zesty colours. You can never get passed them — they stay and grow on you. Suddenly like a well worn, comfortable marriage I was sucked into the intricacies of the many details and processes that somehow come together to make it picture perfect.
From my understanding there are three types of ikat :
· Warp ikat, the easiest of the three, I imagine, is created when the pattern is dyed onto the warp. You can “see” it’s shadow emerge when the warp is stretched out into the loom.
· Weft ikat I was told in Puttapaka, is significantly more difficult than its warp counterpart because the pattern is dyed onto the weft threads. The are difficult to execute as the pattern “emerges” during weaving. The weaver has to have a certain complex degree of skill to keep the threads aligned so that the pattern is perfect.
· The double Ikat technique requires the expertise of a master weaver. Both the warp and weft threads are resist dyed. Only the weaver is able to visualize the pattern before hand. Intricate calculations and graphs are drawn because the warp and weft threads are matched “point to point”. There is no room for error.
While single ikat is practiced all along the silk route, double ikat is practiced by a handful of people in four places : Patan, Gujarat, Puttapaka, Telengana, Tenganan Bali and Japan. I would like to visit all four places, preferable in the same year.
To create a single ikat saree :
1.The master weaver conceptualizes his pattern, and then creates a blue-print in graph form for it. This is then given to apprentices who later (step 4) mark the pattern on the yarn.
2.The yarn is boiled and turned into hanks — loosely coiled rings of thread.Once ready, the hanks are wound into bobbins.
3.The warp threads are transferred to a creel — a rack that holds the bobbins when spinning
4.The yarn is then prepared using a call an Asu or yarn winding machine. Earlier, this step was manually done by hand and would take hours to finish. Then, using the graph the design is marked onto the yarn for dying.
5.Today rubber is wrapped around the thread instead of thicker, coarser strands of thread from older practices.
6.The yarn is then dyed manually and the rubber ties removed.The yarn is then stretched out and aligned so that the design “sets” properly.
7.The weft threads are transferred to pins, which are a lot like large spools, to prepare for weaving.
8.Next, the warp yarn is threaded or drawn-in through the slots of the reed. These slots are known as dents. The reed, which looks like a steel comb, is responsible for keeping the warp threads separated at the correct width.
9.Finally the loom is set up.
This details how single Ikats come to life. What then is a Patan Patola? What then is a Telia Rumal ?
Both the Patan Patola and Telia Rumal and double ikats. They are characterized by specific motifs and patterns. Master weavers like the Salvis,Gajam Anjahiah and Gajam Govardhan invove themselves in maintaining and developing new patterns and colours based on the foundation of older patterns and colours.
In the case of the Telia Rumal, traditionally, the cotton yarn was dipped in oil to coat the yarn such that it would be sturdier and water resist for fisherman who used it traditionally. Today, this process is hardly followed, so it then is identified by very specific, chequered, mathikai, jasmine older “Telia Rumal” patterns. Therefore while all Telia Rumals are double ikats, not all double ikats from Nalgonda are Telia Rumals.
The expertise in keeping these rich traditions alive depends on innovation — innovation of patterns, and innovation of processes. That is the only way to carry them into the future with us. Ensuring that this particular love, indeed, lasts forever.
