( P1020523  ©  DY of jtdytravels)

We didn’t see the washing and dyeing process which is done in another building where they need a fire to boil the water. The weaving loom rooms are far too valuable to have fire near to them!  But I do know that the lotus silk thread in my precious red scarf was died from pots of dye like these.  Its coloured threads are blended while weaving along the length of the scarf from fuchsia pink at one end to red at the other.  It’s very soft wearing against the skin and drapes well.

In another section of the workroom some older women were spinning large skeins of pure silkworm silk onto spools.  They were sitting on the floor in what seemed to me to be a very uncomfortable position. This is a very traditional Burmese way of sitting, with the souls of their feet facing away from anyone who might be in front of them.  Feet facing forward is considered to be very rude.

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( P1100465 ©  JT of jtdytravels)

This lady was so warm hearted and friendly.  She asked me to sit beside her.  How I wished that I’d had the ability to sit on the floor like that – and the time (with no tour group timetable pressure) to be able to sit with her and talk about her life and work.  She just smiled acknowledgement and went on to show me what she was doing. These older women have been expert weavers throughout their lives but can now no longer sit at the looms all day. Their weaving was originally done using cotton and later, silk. Then, one old village lady, just before she died, had passed on her special skill of extracting the ‘lotus silk’ from the stalks to some other village women – and so began this village tradition of ‘lotus silk’ weaving.

( P1100466 ©  JT of jtdytravels)

At times the fine silk thread gets into a tangle and its an awful job to sort it out – not easy!  This silkworm silk thread is brought in from China and Thailand. Buddhists don’t believe in killing by boiling, so they won’t boil the silk moth larvae in the cocoons to extract the silk. But they will weave the silk thread they buy in from other countries into beautiful scarves, shawls and longyis.

The threads need to be made ready for the looms by tensioning the threads on this hand wound roller, a younger women’s job.

Some of the other ladies showed me how their looms were set up and how they worked them manually. The first lady was weaving purely in ‘lotus silk’ thread. All of these threads have been painstakingly extracted from lotus stalks! When finished, this scarf will be six times more expensive than the ones woven from regular pure silk – lotus silk is such a rare product and so time consuming to make. Many of these very special ‘lotus silk’ scarves and wraps are made from thread dyed a golden colour. They are then used to drape onto Buddha statues for very special occasions.

The other three ladies in the video were using a mix of silkworm silk and lotus silk. That gives a different textural feel to the material. The photo below is my other scarf.  Three types of thread were used resulting in a stiffer material than the pure lotus silk scarf.

Many of the weavers took a break while we were there because, with the noise of so many looms all clacking away together, we wouldn’t have been able to hear any explanations!  And also, it was getting later in the day and some of the women had gone home to do their family chores and collect their children from school. We’d see some of them later as we motored along the village waterways.

( P1100457 ©  JT of jtdytravels)

The only man I saw working here was painstakingly tying the silk threads with off cuts of cotton threads ready for the ikat dying process. If we’d had longer time, I would love to have watched this whole process through to the making of the intricate materials as seen in his pattern piece.

( P1100477 ©  JT of jtdytravels)

This is an example of threads ready to be dyed using the ikat method. (I think it would make a beautiful wall hanging just as it is!) In this method, the patterns are created by binding the threads of silk with cotton before the weaving process. In the more commonly known tie dying process, the fabric is woven first, then the resist bindings are applied (or wax is used)  before the dying process.

After dying, the ikat patterns will be clearly visible in the warp threads as the loom is set up for weaving.  The weaver will then introduce plain coloured weft threads as the fabric is woven ( weft – weft to wight! the left to right threads.)  This is an extremely time consuming process as you can imagine.

( P1020529  ©  DY of jtdytravels)

Of course there is a shop! And having seen these beautiful pieces in the making, I could so easily have bought many of them as gifts. Two things were against that hope. One was time. We were being called back to the boats – I had spent too much time with the ladies in the workrooms; not that I regretted that for a moment. And secondly, Burma still doesn’t have any way of using credit cards. We had to take any money we were likely to need into the country as cash in crisp new US Dollars. As this was still early in our journey, I had to be careful. But I do have two lovely scarves as my special memory of these ladies and their painstaking work. I’ll just have to go back – I think I’ve said that before!

( P1100454 ©  JT of jtdytravels)

There were several buildings in this weavers complex and I believe it is growing in scope. I understand that some of the village women have had the benefit of United Nations Development Programme  micro – finance loans to help them develop their small businesses.

I am a great advocate of micro loans. They have been very successful in many countries, helping the poor to help themselves. These are loans – not handouts or donations. The philosophy behind such loans is one of ‘teaching people to fish rather than just giving a fish”.  Helping them to help themselves. First loans may be rather small, about $80; however, that’s enough in these poor countries to make a real difference to people who, although they are struggling, are prepared to work to get themselves out of poverty.  Most loans have been given to women or a group of women and well over 90% of such loans are repaid in full. After repaying the first loan, as the the business grows, a larger loan may be granted.