When I followed the legendary threads back to Maheshwar, a tiny town in Madhya Pradesh in September last year, I was lucky enough to spend some of my time volunteering with WomenWeave. In a town known for the gossamer fine and Geographically Indexed handloom Maheshwari Sari, which was originally woven in cotton but is now most common in silk or silk cotton blends, WomenWeave is doing things a little differently with a heavy focus on Khadi* products, using a variety of locally sourced, organic and even Desi** varieties of cotton alongside a host of other natural fibers.
WomenWeave’s Maheshwar Campus is named the Gudi Mudi Khadi Centre, which refers to the ‘scrunched’ texture of khadi in the local language Nimadi and it is under this one roof where almost all of the production takes place – from hand spinning the yarn to shipping the finished products.
The processes which take place here are incredibly time consuming and demand immense skill, patience and attention to detail. During my time with them, I put together a presentation which describes the various processes behind the products of WomenWeave which gives an overview of the various stages of production and the countless hours and human hands which goes into even the simplest of finished woven products. When one thinks of handloom it is easy to imagine how many hours are spent at the loom, but on a tour of the WomenWeave campus it becomes evident just how important and equally if not more time consuming the multitudinous pre- and post- loom activities are. In putting together this document I was able to spend one on one time with many of the wonderful women behind the gorgeous weaves, forming relationships and really getting to understand the technicalities behind each step. I will be forever humbled by and grateful to Niveditha and the team for the honor of this experience.
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Read more about the cotton used by WomenWeave here