LOCAL WOOL, ARTISAN WEAVES
Image courtesy of Lalji Vankar
Brinda Gill returns as our Blog Guest Editor this week, bringing textile stories and voices from the textile industry in India. A post-graduate in economics, based in Pune, India. Gill enjoys discovering the wealth of a nation through its heritage of textiles, culture, arts, architecture and natural life, and writing on these subjects. With India being bequeathed with a treasured heritage of textiles, spanning different techniques and variations within each technique, she finds the learning never stops. She believes India’s textile artisans - skilled, creative, humble and hardworking - are true heroes as they create wondrous hand-woven, embroidered, resist-dyed, block printed and painted natural fibre textiles that are testimony to the ancient living heritage of India’s fabled fabrics.
“My forefathers wove thick shawls called dhabda. These were woven with yarns that were hand-spun from the wool of the local sheep. Today, we weave traditional textiles and a range of new products such as ponchos, jackets, shawls, stoles and cushion covers”, says traditional weaver Lalji Vankar.
Lalji lives in Kotay village, Bhuj taluka, Kutch, in the western Indian state of Gujarat that is famous for its hand-woven and hand-embroidered textiles. He represents the new generation of weavers in Kutch, who have grown up in the rhythm of village life. He has seen the sheep being hand-sheared for their wool and then seen these masses of wool being cleaned and processed by hand, being hand-spun, dyed/tie-dyed with natural dyes and then hand-woven on a frame loom by family and community members. Growing up he assisted in these tasks and naturally learnt the processes and the technique of hand-weaving with sheep wool and other yarns.
Image courtesy of Lalji Vankar
Yet, keen to be part of the evolving market, Lalji pursued a two-month course in weaving at The Handloom School, at Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh state. In 2018, he discussed local sheep wool weaving with students of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, to co-create contemporary-style stoles and shawls; ponchos that are styled on the loom itself with the help of shuttles; and jackets with woven patterns including one depicting a local legend. 
Image courtesy of Lalji Vankar
Lalji’s weaves and apparel (created with wool of local sheep that is hand sheared, hand processed, hand spun, hand dyed with natural dyes, and then hand woven) exude style along with an innate earthy artisanal beauty. He has learnt the reach of a smartphone. He has an Instagram account; on request, he sends pictures of the weaving process by WhatsApp; uses Google Translate when required to understand messages; receives payment by Google Pay; and dispatches the weaves to customers in India and abroad from the post office. 
Image courtesy of Lalji Vankar
Lalji is an inspiring example of an artisan working from home, looking after his family members of different generations, taking the effort to up-skill his traditional craft and connect with buyers with the help of technology.
Blog courtesy of Brinda Gill