METHOD OF KENTE WEAVING

There are over 350 patterns for Kente Cloths.

Kente cloth is purely hand woven; no machinery is used in this.

Weavers sit inside a wooden handloom to create long, narrow, interwoven stripes.

Setting up new design on a handloom requiring experienced skill can take a long
time.

Weavers control the loom using both hands and feet.

In this process the warp is placed quite far away in front of the loom under heavy
stones keeping it tight which gradually gets closer to the loom as the cloth is
weaved.
In this the heddles separates the warp threads so that weft can be passed through
using a shuttle and then is beaten in evenly everytime to make the fabric compact
using beater.

The more complicated design the more it will be expensive to purchase.

 Kente is woven in four-inch (9.5 cm) narrow strips.

A characteristic Asante’s kente has geometric shapes woven in bright colors along
the entire length of the strip.

While Ewe kente often displays tweed effect by putting various colored threads
together in many of the warps.

It is easier to weave geometric than organic shapes, so rectangles, diamonds,

zigzags, and squares are predominant.

There are differences in how the cloth is worn by men and women. On average, a
men’s size cloth measures 24 strips wide, making it about 8 feet wide and 12 feet
long.

Women may wear either one large piece or a combination of two or three pieces of
varying sizes ranging from 5-12 strips, averaging of 6 feet long.