PAITHANI

The Paithani Sari & Fabrics are mainly woven in Paithan, of Aurangabad
District and Yeola of Nashik District of Maharashtra, India. The art of
Paithan is more than 2000 years old, developed in the then splendid city of
Pratishthan ruled by the legendary Satavahanas ruler Shalivahana now
Paithan some 50 km from Aurangabad. In the Satavahana Kingdom, cloth
was distributed on ceremonial and auspicious occasions to Brahmins and
Buddhist Monks. Depictions of coloured and embroidered garments in silk
as well as cotton in the paintings of Ajanta and Ellora caves has confirmed
the age-old production of Paithani Saree & Fabrics.
The Paithani sari has an elaborate brocaded pallu with weft patterns achieved
through interlocking of colourful silk threads. Originally these saris were
woven with body in coloured cotton yarn. Silk and zari were mainly used for
pallu and border. Although in the 19th century silk fields are woven majorly.
RAW MATERIAL
SILK YARN: The Mulberry silk yarn is used for this product. This is of
two types. More twisted and stiff silk is used for warp which is known as
“Taana”. Less twisted silk which have some softness is used for weft and
is known as “Baana”. This is twisted in three ply.
ZARI: Two types of Zari is used, one which is used as Warp and another
type is used as Weft. Warp zari is a coating on Silk or fibre thread and
weft zari has coating on Cotton. Zari is also used in designing of Pallu
and Border.
DYES-Synthetic dyes mainly acid dyes

TECHNIQUE OF PAITHANI WEAVING

The process of weaving may be divided into stages such as
(1) Sorting of silk,
(2) Degumming, bleaching, and dyeing,
(3) Winding of weft on cones and joining warp, and,
(4) Actual weaving and designing.
(1) Sorting of silk-Silk winding is done on small cones. Then these reels/cones
are used for warping of silk. Manually warping is done on a warping frame
(2) Degumming, bleaching, and dyeing,
• Degumming process which removes the silk gum is also called as
Boiling off process and this is done by the use of soap and soda.
• Bleaching is done to remove the natural colouring matter tinted with
yellow, yellow green and brown pigments to produce pure white
material.
• Bleached yarn is then dyed. The dyeing of silk is mostly done with
acid dyes.
(3) Winding
The warp and weft yarn are normally received by the weavers in the form of
bundles.
The new warp is joined to previous warp with gum. Weft of body, border,
zari and selvage are all separate. Though they are separate they are joined in
one stage and there is a combination of body, border, zari and selvage.
Weft thread is wounded on cone and then wounded on bobbins.
(4) Weaving
The loom is simple and consists of a traditional wooden frame
• In some looms jacquard and dobby attachment is used for the purpose
of butta and border design.
• Tillies are used for designing pallav and for making buttas on body of
the cloth.
• Punched cards are used for butta design and Three shuttle [Kadial] sari
for weaving of border design.
The two types of looms used are-
1. Pit Loom: These are the ancestral type of loom. This loom is installed on
pit. Weaving done on this loom is done in three types i.e. fly shuttle
weaving, throw shuttle weaving and cut shuttle weaving.
2. Frame Looms: These looms are the newer ones, with lightweight metal
frames that constitute the main body of steel. It requires three additional sets
of needles. These different sets of needles are useful in four different ways,
the first set controls the entire warp threads, and the second set controls the
gold threads outside the borders and the last set controls the gold threads
which form the design in the body of the structure.
• One Shuttle is passed from one end to other. In this process weaving of
body and border is done with one shuttle.
• In throw shuttle weaving one shuttle is used for body while 2 shuttles are
used for border at both the sides. In this process thread of border is
interlocked with thread of body.
• The weaver uses the zari threads and other coloured threads across the
warp depending on the desired design. The motion of the loom provides
movement to the overhead jacquard-like punch card mechanism called
dobby and helps in designing of the border of the sari.
• Once a sari is completed, it is taken off from the loom and sent for
cutting. The normal length of such a sari is 6 yards. It is then folded
properly and packed.
MOTIFS
• The motifs are inspired from the flora and fauna found around Paithan
and also from the scenes depicted in Ajanta and other paintings.
• The motifs such as flowers, animals, birds and mythological figures are
also incorporated in the body of the fabric. The ‘Patti’ (or leaf) motif was
popular throughout the country. The Paithani weavers were most famous
for their ‘Asavali’ motif.
• The specialty of the Paithani weavers lies in their extra weft mechanism
of embroidery, where separate bamboo spindles are used for each colour
in the motif.
• Design of border is Narali or Pakha which itself is called as Paithani
border.

Border design
Design to be drawn is prepared on a paper. And according to that design
weaving of Pallu is done. This is done by interlocking threads to each other
by putting them through shade. The motifs are Lotus. Peacock, Asawali,
Parinda, Hans, Pair of Parrot and as per choice of the customer designing of
pallu is done. This is the unique feature of the Paithani. Paithani Brocade
saris are known as per their design i.e. when there is a design of parrot then it
is called Muniya brocade, peacock designed as Peacock [“Mor”] brocade.
This takes up a great deal of time and hardly five to six cm. a day can be
woven.
Due to proximity to the Ajanta caves, the influence of the Buddhist paintings
can be seen in the woven Paithani motifs. The traditional Paithani used to be
a plain sari with a heavy zari border and ornamental Pallav. However, today
Paithanis with motifs are in vogue: stars, circles, peacocks, flowers and
paisleys. The Paithani borders and Pallavs are heavily adorned with these
motifs and the sari is given the name after the design on it. Tota-maina
(parrot), Bangdi-mor (peacock with round design), Asavali (flower and
vine), Narli (coconut), are all descriptive of Paithanis. In the olden days, the
zari used in making Paithani’s was drawn from pure gold.
Pallu and Border: In the days of Peshwas, the borders and the pallu were
made of pure gold mixed with copper to give it strength. The borders are
created with interlocked weft technique either with coloured silk or zari. In
the border woven with a zari, ground coloured silk patterns are added as
supplementary weft inlay against the zari usually in the form of flower or a
creeping vine. Two types of border are:
 The Narali border and
 The Pankhi border
In the pallu of such saris, certain motifs are very commonly found. Some of
them are ‘Asawali’, ‘Panja’ (a flower in a geometrical shape), ‘Muthada’ (a
geometrical shape), and ‘mor’ (peacock).
Bangdi Mor Pallu
COLOURS-The colors that are typically used in these saris are:
• Kaali chandrakala (black),
• Uddani (lighter black),
• Pophali (yellow),
• Neeligungi (blue),
• Pasila (a combination of green, red and pink),
• Pheroze (a blend of green, white and red),
• Samprus (a mixture of green and red) and
• Kusumbi (a purple and red combination).

KANJIVARAM
The rich weave and feel of Kancheepuram saris are also known as
kanchpuram, kancheevaram, kanjivaram saris. These saris originated in a
small town, kanchi (Kanchipuram) a famous historical town 60 km from
Chennai. According to Hindu mythology, Kanchi silk weavers are the
descendants of Sage Markanda, the master weaver of Gods who is supposed
to have woven tissue from lotus fiber. It is said the tradition of sari weaving
arise due to temple traditions of the famous Kamakshi temple. The sari is
chiefly woven by the padma saliyar and the pattu saliyar weaver.
These saris were worn by the royals, wives of landlords, nobles and during
the special occasions like weddings and festivals. In earlier times
Kanchipuram was primarily a cotton weaving center and silk weaving started
very late. In earlier days pattu pudavai (skirt and blouse) was made out of it
and today finer, woven and more expensive silk saris are made.
It is made on two types of loom i.e. throw shuttle loom for making silk
fabrics and fly shuttle loom to make cotton cloths. Kanchipuram specializes
in murukku pattu,a heavy silk sari woven with tightly twisted three ply, high
denier threads, using thick zari threads for supplementary-warp and weft
patterning.
 RAW MATERIAL
A three-ply Mulberry silk is used for these sarees which gives it a heavier look.
Gold zari is used. Silk thread twisted with thin silver wire and then immersed in
pure gold.
Preparation of silk yarn-
• Twisting of the yarn
• Degumming
• Dyeing of silk with vegetable or synthetic dyes
• After dyeing it is rinsed in cold water. These dried yarns are then treated
with the lime juice to improve its lustre and to remove dirt.
• The warps are stretched and any dirt or dust is removed from it along
with the broken threads which are mended.
• Yarns are dipped in a mixture of boiled rice which is a sizing operation. It
is then sundried.
• After this the warp yarns are taken to the loom.
• These warp yarns are then joined to the old warp yarns of the earlier sari.
• The warp is fixed on to the loom. The distance between a warp beam and
cloth beam is kept around 12 yards. For a normal 6-yard sari the warps
are stretched in such a way that at one time three yards are made and then
the next three.
• For making the sari border, designs are first drawn on a graph paper and
then it is transferred onto a harness called Adai, which is a country style
jacquard attachment. It read the cards, punched to the requirement of the
design, and accordingly lift the thread associated with the design
formation and pattern on the saree is achieved.
The zari is used in the body, borders and pallu.
Most of the saris have contrast borders and, on both sides, ranging from 2-8
inches.
The Kanchipuram silk saree is unique in many ways. The main features
among them are Korvai and Petni. The weaving is done on a loom with three
shuttles and this is known as korvai technique. It involves the joining of two
different colours when the body meets the two borders. The second border
can be attached only by an extra helper, in a painstaking, labourious process.
For this process 2-3 people are required one on each border and one for the
center.
Kanjeevaram silks are therefore sometimes also referred to as korvai pattu or
the saree with ‘attached border’. At the point where the Body is joined with
the pallu which has a contrast colour, a technique called petni is used to
create a narrow strip of double thickness, within which individual warps in
the body are twisted around a new set of warp threads, the same colour as the
border for about 2 inches.

Korvai Technique

Petni Technique
The body warps are cut off.At the back of the sari the joint is identified by
two parallel warp fringes facing the body in the same colour as pallu or
endpiece.

COLOURS AND MOTIFS

Black, blue, green and mustard are very popular colours.
Bright colours like orange, scarlet, red, saffron, green, maroon, peacock
blue, turquoise blue etc are used.
MOTIFS
• Parallel lines where the stripes run along the whole length of the sari
• Check pattern with squares and rectangles of various sizes
• Paisleys, peacocks Yali (horse like motif) and gopuram are old designs.
• Rudraksha, gopuram, malli mogu, maylikan, lotus, creepers, flowers,
parrot or mythological motifs are used.