Handloom Weaving

The main centres of Jamdani weaving in Uttar Pradesh are Tanda (Fyzabad district) and Banaras. Jamdanis are very thinly textured muslins(white thin cloth) with floral, bird and animal motifswhich are woven on the loom. The warp is unbleached gray yarn and the motifs are woven with bleached white yarn. At banaras the craftspersons use gold thread in addition to the bleached and unbleached white threads. The finest Banaras muslins are called Kasivastras. Tanda fabrics are exceptionally frail and only white yarn is used for the weaving. The threads used for decoration are not cut at the edges, but are left hanging in the spool and then introduced into the figured pick.

Banarasi Brocades as the world knows it is called by the name kinkab in Varanasi. A high quality weaving is done using gold and silver threads. Silk Threads are also used as well. The most common motifs include scroll patterns and butidars designs. The other designs are Jewelry designs, birds, animals, flowers, creepers, paisley motifs. Hindu religious and Mughal motifs also influenced the brocade designs. When a Gold embellishment is done on a silver background it is called ganga-jamuna in the local language.