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It wouldn't surprise me to find shawls like these in a craft museum, or even in a museum of natural history, to us they are significant as a form of art." A weaver’s son, possessed of a weaver’s patience,” sang Kabir, a 15th-century Indian poet and weaver whose words remain true centuries later. Patience is an essential element in weaving, especially in the weaving of a Kashmiri shawl. Each bundle of wool, too fragile to be worked by a machine and weighing as little as 50g, takes many hours to clean before it is treated with rice paste, washed and spun into gauzy threads, and sent to artisans at the loom. Kashmiri shawls are traditionally decorated using kani, tiny bobbins wound with different coloured threads, and the artisan manipulates the bobbins to create the design one deft move at a time. An intricate Kani piece can take more than two years to complete – and delicate embroideries are likewise time consuming. Each Kashmiri shawl requires human hands and inhuman patience. Finished this book last night. I'd really been looking forward to reading this for my book club's read this month as its been nominated before and I've heard a lot of praise for it, plus it's rating on Goodreads is quite high. Sadly though, I think I might have missed something! I really enjoyed the two time settings for the novel but then I always enjoy this in a book. I warmed particularly to Nerys' story and this was the best part of the novel for me although I really loved the interlinking between her story and the journey made by her granddaughter, Mair, to find out the secret of the Kashmir shawl. The characters are real. The conversations are real. The situations the characters find themselves in are real. The only flaw (if it is a flaw) is that all of the ends are tied up so neatly – especially Farida and Zahra – that one was just too pat.
India to Europe: The Production of the Kashmir Shawl and From India to Europe: The Production of the Kashmir Shawl and
With their men away at war, the women are left to entertain themselves as best they can in a country where their presence is becoming less and less welcome. Nerys and her friends Myrtle and Caroline could never have dreamed of the changes the war and the absence of husbands will make on their lives. Decades later, Mair attempts to find out both the public and private histories of this staunch group of friends, sitting out the war in a houseboat in Srinagar. This was a reread for me, I loved it the first time, this time it was like I was reading it for the very first time as I’d forgotten a lot of what happened. Rosie Thomas is one of my favourite authors so it wasn’t difficult to read this again, Worth, Susannah (December 1995). "Early 20th Century Embroidered Shawls". Needle Arts. 26 (4): 38–41.
The Kashmir Shawl
An intricately woven shawl is both memento and metaphor in Thomas’ meditative transgenerational tale.
Collecting Guide Kashmir Shawls Christies - Collecting Guide Kashmir Shawls
Janey King, née Morris was born on 1947 in Denbigh, Wales, and also grew up in North Wales. She read English at Oxford, and after a spell in journalism and publishing began writing fiction after the birth of her first child. Published since 1982 as Rosie Thomas, she has written fourteen best-selling novels, deal with the common themes of love and loss. She is one of only a few authors to have won twice the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association, in 1985 with Sunrise, and in 2007 with Iris and Ruby. Natural 100% pure, luxurious and the softest Jacquard Cashmere Scarves self woven with a beautiful mughal paisley design. The subtle woven design renders an eternal elegance to these very luxurious wool Cashmere Scarves. Only the softest and highest quality Cashmere Pashmina wool has been used to weave these most elegant Cashmere scarves.Kashmir shawls are traditionally made either of shahtoosh or pashmina. [1] [7] Shahtoosh wool comes from the fine hairs on the underbelly of the Tibetan antelope. [7] Cashmere derives its name from the home of the Kashmir shawl, and is often incorrectly equated with pashmina. Pashmina and cashmere both come from the Changthangi goat, but pashmina is made from a fine subset of cashmere [2] ranging from 12–16 microns, [8] whereas generic cashmere ranges from 12–21 microns. [8] Types of wool by fineness And since each unique piece of Fashion-Art that we sell at The Kashmir Company is TOTALLY original, you’re guaranteed to stand out from the crowd no matter what you buy! The embroidery stitch employed is rather like the parallel darning stitch and is rarely allowed to penetrate the entire fabric. The partners focused on finding artisans willing to make Kani shawls and teach the skill to the next generation. “I’m proud to say that we’ve made progress and today we have a team of 120 weavers,” says Ali. The company has worked with luxury brands such as Hermès and Marie-Hélène de Taillac’s Hot Pink store in Jaipur on their cashmere pieces, and offers a contemporary line made from cashmere and merino wool – but embroideries and Kani weaves are its trademark. Every year Kashmir Loom’s artisans create about 90 to 95 fine Kani shawls, including museum-quality pieces, such as the Sargent shawl. John Singer Sargent, to whom Housego is related, depicted a Kashmiri shawl in several of his paintings. Housego decided to reproduce it – but in true Kashmiri fashion, Kashmir Loom’s Sargent shawl isn’t a simple replica; it’s inspired by the painter’s pastel palette, which inflects its paisley motifs with blue and green hues. Kashmir Loom has a team of 120 weavers who will also teach the skill to the next generation A stole is a woman's shawl, especially a formal shawl of expensive fabric, used around the shoulders over a party dress or ball gown. A stole is narrower than a typical shawl and of simpler construction than a cape; it is a length of a quality material, wrapped and carried about the shoulders or arms. Lighter materials such as silk and chiffon are simply finished, that is, cropped, hemmed, and bound; heavier materials such as fur and brocade are often lined as well.
THE KASHMIR SHAWL | Kirkus Reviews
Wonderful descriptions and upper and middle class people we can engage with - if stereotyped - and you really get a feel for life on the lake in that time. Gripping and atmospheric and something to learn. Thomas weaves two stories together into a romantic epic: Mair’s search for the origins of the shawl (as well as a search for her own future), and the historical story of her grandparents, particularly her grandmother’s experiences in 1940s Kashmir. I found the historical story much more interesting, if a bit melodramatic. I loved this book. The writing is gorgeous. I found myself rereading passages to savor the words. That is, until I got caught up in the story! Now I am planning to reread the book so I can appreciate the writing skill that is so evident. Just imagine how she'll look when you're sitting at a restaurant or bistro with the woman you love... Scott Shane's outstanding work Flee North tells the little-known tale of an unlikely partnership ...Kashmir shawls have been woven since the 1st century AD. Although it is extremely rare to find textiles that survive from antiquity, fragments of Kashmir shawls, dating to the 3rd and 6th centuries, have been discovered in Egypt and Syria.
The Kashmir Shawl – HarperCollins Publishers UK
I really recommend this as a Historical read, so very interesting. Even when Mair goes there, there is fighting between the Hindu's and the Muslims. So very sad.
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a b c d e f g h Irwin, John (1973). The kashmir shawl. London: H.M. Stationery Off. ISBN 0-11-290164-6. OCLC 3241655. Interspersed between chapters about Mair's current day travels, is a much more interesting journey through the same country with Nerys Watkins and her missionary husband, Evan, and her two close friends, Myrtle McMinn and Caroline Bowen. This was the section that really grabbed me and the characters that stood out. Shawls were also part of the traditional male costume in Kashmir. [ citation needed] They were woven in extremely fine woollen twill, some such as the Orenburg shawl, were even said to be as fine as the Shatoosh. [ citation needed] They could be in one colour only, woven in different colours (called tilikar), ornately woven or embroidered (called ameli). There are actually two stories told here, some of it we know but Mair never has all the answers. Mair's Grandmother Nerys and Grandfather Evan are missionaries to India, with WWII going on in 1941, we are about to experience life there. Nerys spends time with Myrtle, and Carolyn, you will enjoy the fun times they make out adversity. As we read Nerys’s story and peel away the layers of secrecy, her granddaughter is doing the same but without the benefit that we as readers have. We’re following Mair’s pursuit of the story but we’re a few steps ahead of her most of the way. We watch as she narrows down the location where the shawl was made, finds people who can help her with Nerys’s story, and eventually we reach the final chapters where everything ‘more or less’ knits together and the mysteries are all tied up.
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