An Uttarakhandi woman spinning wool into yarn.
The beautiful hills of Uttarakhand are the abode of the craft of weaving wool, initiated by the women of the villages. A craft, that has found its roots in the region just 3-4 generations back, has now become inseparable from the lives of the natives, the Bhotias and the Garhwalis.
Bhotias are predominantly a nomadic tribe in Uttarakhand, India. They spend the winter months in Dhunda, obtaining wool and weaving fabrics, and the summer months in Harsil, growing beans, potatoes, apples and almonds. Every year a self appointed group of people (generally old who are incapable of farming) take charge of the rearing, carefully guiding the sheep from all the households towards the local pastures and the green lands while the rest are busy farming. September – October is the business time. The sheep are back from forests, farms are ready to be harvested and apple orchards are blooming red with fruits. Harvesting is a community affair, with everyone harvesting each other’s fields together, singing songs, snacking; it is celebrated like a festive occasion.
At the end of summer, when the sheep are fat from lazily grazing in the plains and have fully grown hair, the tribe comes down to resume their weaving activities.
After the sheep are sheared, the wool is washed and dried, ready to be made into yarns for weaving. Even though cleaning and carding of the wool is traditionally done by hand, two carding units were installed in village to fasten the process out of which only one is functional today. The process of carding converts the rough wool into a thin, clean, homogeneous strip which can easily be spun into a yarn of equal thickness throughout.
Spinning is done on a traditional spinning wheel, or Charkha after which the yarn is ready to be knitted or woven. For weaving, there are two types of looms, the upright loom for coarser fabric and the pit loom for finer fabric. Knitting, done with a pair of needles has attained a different level of fabric construction altogether with the motifs getting three dimensional. Sheep wool blended with rabbit hair gives extra softness, shimmer and whiteness to the weave. Once the fabric is made, it is washed and brushed to give a felt like effect.
Source: gaatha.com/
This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at wfi @ vsnl.com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.
The beautiful hills of Uttarakhand are the abode of the craft of weaving wool, initiated by the women of the villages. A craft, that has found its roots in the region just 3-4 generations back, has now become inseparable from the lives of the natives, the Bhotias and the Garhwalis.
Bhotias are predominantly a nomadic tribe in Uttarakhand, India. They spend the winter months in Dhunda, obtaining wool and weaving fabrics, and the summer months in Harsil, growing beans, potatoes, apples and almonds. Every year a self appointed group of people (generally old who are incapable of farming) take charge of the rearing, carefully guiding the sheep from all the households towards the local pastures and the green lands while the rest are busy farming. September – October is the business time. The sheep are back from forests, farms are ready to be harvested and apple orchards are blooming red with fruits. Harvesting is a community affair, with everyone harvesting each other’s fields together, singing songs, snacking; it is celebrated like a festive occasion.
At the end of summer, when the sheep are fat from lazily grazing in the plains and have fully grown hair, the tribe comes down to resume their weaving activities.
After the sheep are sheared, the wool is washed and dried, ready to be made into yarns for weaving. Even though cleaning and carding of the wool is traditionally done by hand, two carding units were installed in village to fasten the process out of which only one is functional today. The process of carding converts the rough wool into a thin, clean, homogeneous strip which can easily be spun into a yarn of equal thickness throughout.
Spinning is done on a traditional spinning wheel, or Charkha after which the yarn is ready to be knitted or woven. For weaving, there are two types of looms, the upright loom for coarser fabric and the pit loom for finer fabric. Knitting, done with a pair of needles has attained a different level of fabric construction altogether with the motifs getting three dimensional. Sheep wool blended with rabbit hair gives extra softness, shimmer and whiteness to the weave. Once the fabric is made, it is washed and brushed to give a felt like effect.
Source: gaatha.com/
This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at wfi @ vsnl.com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.
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