Placemats in Brocades Handmade Home Decorating Ideas from Banaras, India Runner 25x13 inches, Mat 13x19 inches

Beautiful placemats from the holy town of Varanasi in brocade work. Brocades are textiles woven with warp and weft threads of different colors and often of different materials. The Benaras (Varanasi) brocades are woven in silk, with profuse use of metal threads on the pallavs (end pieces). The weavers are known as karigars, which means artists, who weave in workshops called karkhanas. Almost every inch of space in the karrkhana is taken up by looms, and above each loom hangs a crowded arrangement of strings leading down to the room heddles. The zari thread, known as kalabattun, consists of finely drawn gold, silver or base metal thread, wound round a silk thread. The most famed of Varanasi brocaded textile is called kinkhab woven with a coarse but durable silk known as mukta, which is heavy enough to take brocading with silver or gold thread. The silk and zari work brocade of lighter material and less heavier ornamentation is known as bafta and the brocade without any metal thread work is known as amaru. Benaras brocades are woven on pitlooms.