The rotating blades available in the machine are sharp and are good to extract coir fiber as the fiber is rough. Banana being a smooth, soft fiber, the sharp blades while extracting the fibers may cause harm to the strength of fibers by beating and cutting them into short lengths.
Nails
Brushes used clean extracted fiber to more refined ones which can be directly used for spinning and weaving.
varieties of Fibers extracted from the Banana bark and leaf. Images of fibers after extraction.
We dry the processed fibers naturally. Initially we used to extract fiber in our own unit. Now a days Kora support people who want to start a unit, train the techniques of extracting fiber and buy it from them.
The object of the grooved rod is to regulate the twist of the yarn and to prevent entanglement of the strands at the time of doubling. When the grooved rod reaches the stationary wheel, the turning of the spindles of the spinning wheel is stopped and all the ends from that of stationary wheel are cut off and made into hanks.
Depending on the usage the yarn is tested if there is sufficient twist. If ore twist is required, the movable wheel is turned towards its original direction till the required twist is obtained. If the yarn has more twist than required, the movable wheel is turned in the direction contrary to the original twist.
yarn spun by hand
Protruding fibers
The women of East and West Godavari districts have been practicing the skill of spinning coir ropes for the local vendors since the last 7 decades. We tried to replace the coir fiber with banana that has better commercial value and asked them to make it finer. In few areas where the women are not so skilled we trained them to spin single strand yarn on a ratt. It took almost two years for the artisans to get comfortable with the new material and spin a good quality of yarn. Slowly standardised three different counts of yarns using two kinds of fine fibers with colour variations of natural white and brown. We are working with nearly 120 women living in
Mallikapuram, Chintalamoru, Gudapalli, Veguvaripalem, Rajole, Mogilipalli, Pasarlapudi, Nagaram, Appannapalli, Podalada, Chakalipalem, Doddavaram, Kadali, Thotlapalem, Peruru, Panasala, Doddi, Ambajipeta, Gannavaram,
A hank of any yarn consists of Hundred Meters. Hanks are collected and tagged with the artisan names who spun the yarn.
Bodapativaripalem etc. of East and west Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh working in small clusters. They spin two ply banana yarn of two varieties and single strand banana yarn of four varieties for us.
Oggu
For every pick before beating, the weaver keep the oggu for extra length which results in the weft dominating weave.
Weft
Detail: interlocking technique of two colour yarns that for patterns.
selvedge
100 % Banana
1Hath = 18 centimeters
As some of the artisans are illiterates they were
asked to learn up to ten to twenty numbers that will
inches The artisans use naive methods to measure the mat or length of mat. Generally they use a cotton thread or measure it by hand in a very casual way. They never felt it serious to follow any fixed unit of measurement. Weaving with reference to Specification
Format 1
They were introduced to centimeters, meters, inches and feet in relation. Weaving to perfection
3
It is very important for any artisans to follow specifications and weave according to a particular pattern. To meet any particular order requirement it is important to work in a group and meet up the specification and quality aspects. So we explored so many possibilities and ways to develop a common language between the artisans o understand and implement.
Initially when the weavers started duplicating the sample duplicating the sample got confused with the count of No. of inches. or less. At times there was problem of design getting distorted.
Format 2
Format 3
There were few young weavers who were able to read in Telugu. The specification format was given in this format to understand and weave it according to the pattern.
A format with drawings of bunch of fibers that need to be resist dyed in a particular pattern and use it in format to get the desired a pattern.
Circle
Triangle
Four square
Geometrical pattern 1
Geometrical pattern 2
Geometrical pattern 3
Visualized drawing
12
14
Drafts
We tried to explore simple patterns and resist dyeing techniques that are easy to implement as the craftsmen were new to the technique and need good skill to practice it. The grass is dyed following the above patterns and try to explore them in different permutations and combinations that resulted in huge variety of value added design patterns.
Sample Design woven using dent variation technique Sample Design 3 which allows thick structure variation. It has cushioning feel and reasonable weight to be woven as portable mat.
Final products
The final look of the products using different Banana fibers. These products are avalable in Few stores in Hyderabad and Visakapatman
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Explorations
Circle
Square
Triangle
End Product
End Product
Circle exploration
Square exploration
Triangle exploration
Explorations
Natural dyed, hand stitched boxes supplied to few jewelers shops in Visakhapatnam
Natural dyed, hand stitched bags and purses that are sold in domestic market
There are thousands of women, who are very skilled in knitting the lace products. On an average they earn less than 15 rupees a day working 6 to 8 hours. Products were explored using varieties of banana yarn and yarn was modified to suit the technique.