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Crafts / Kani Shawl

Kani Shawl

State
Jammu & Kashmir
Material
Pashmina yarn · Twill tapestry
Rarity
Rare

A pattern woven thread by thread, with a spool for every colour

About

Pashmina shawls whose dense floral and paisley patterns are woven into the cloth with small wooden spools, as in a tapestry.

A Kani shawl is a type of Kashmir shawl whose pattern is woven into the cloth, not printed or embroidered. It is named after Kanihama, a village in Budgam district of the Kashmir Valley, which is regarded as the centre of kani work. In Kashmiri, kani also means a small wooden spool or bobbin, which is the tool that gives the craft its name.

The yarn is pashmina, the very fine hand-spun wool from the undercoat of the Changthangi goat. The cloth is a twill weave with the design worked in a kind of tapestry weaving: each colour is carried by its own small spool, so colour blocks and motifs are built up thread by thread.

Kani shawls are worn as shawls and stoles and treated as heirloom pieces. The design is usually a dense field of small floral and paisley (buta) motifs, in rich colours, across the border and sometimes across the whole shawl.

How it’s made

A Kani shawl begins as a design. A designer, the naqash, draws the pattern on graph paper, and an expert translates it into the talim, a coded chart. The talim is a set of symbols that tells the weavers how many warp threads each pattern block covers and which colour of weft thread to use. It works somewhat like knitting instructions.

The warp, made of fine pashmina yarn, is set up on a wooden loom. Instead of a single shuttle, the weaver uses many small wooden spools, the kanis or tujlis. Each spool carries one colour of weft thread. Following the talim, the weaver passes each spool through just the right number of warp threads, then interlocks the weft with the neighbouring colour and beats it down with a comb. In this way the pattern is woven in thread by thread and appears on the shawl as a smooth tapestry.

Progress is slow, only a small amount of cloth is completed in a day, and a richly patterned shawl can take many months to finish. The finished shawl is washed, trimmed and checked. It can be plain-bordered, patterned all over, or woven in a number of panels that are joined invisibly.

Key features

  • Woven with small wooden spools (kanis), one per colour of weft
  • Twill weave with a tapestry-like patterned design
  • Made from fine hand-spun pashmina yarn
  • Coded pattern chart called talim guides the weavers
  • Traditional centre is Kanihama village in Budgam
  • Dense floral and paisley (buta) motifs
  • Protected as a Geographical Indication

History

Kashmir shawls were valued by rulers and aristocrats for centuries. They were prized under the Mughals, and the Ain-i-Akbari, the chronicle of Emperor Akbar's reign, records the emperor's interest in Kashmir shawls. A V&A shawl in its collection shows that kani work with paisley-shaped flower bouquets was being woven in Kashmir by the early nineteenth century, when Kashmir shawls were highly fashionable in Europe.

Kani weaving is considered one of the oldest handicrafts of Kashmir. Its skills were traditionally passed down through families of weavers, and it shares the idea of a colour-coded pattern chart, called talim, with carpet weaving. The tradition has come under strain as fewer people are trained, because it is long, slow and expensive work.

The Government of Jammu and Kashmir has granted Kani shawls a Geographical Indication, so that shawls woven outside the Kanihama area cannot be sold as Kani shawls. Today Kani weavers and designers are working to keep the craft alive.

Facts

  • Kani A word with two meanings. Kani is the name of a village near Srinagar, Kanihama, and also the Kashmiri word for the small wooden spools used in weaving.
  • Talim A coded chart. A talim is a coded pattern chart of symbols for the number of warp threads and the colour of each weft, read by the weavers as they work.
  • A spool per colour No shuttle. Unlike ordinary weaving, there is no shuttle that runs across the whole cloth: each coloured weft is carried on its own spool.
  • GI Protected name. The Kani shawl has a Geographical Indication, so a shawl woven outside the Kanihama area cannot be sold as a Kani shawl.

Market

Heirloom shawls at heirloom prices

Kani shawls are sold through Kashmir's emporia, craft fairs and a few specialist makers. Because each shawl takes many months, genuine pieces are among the most expensive of Indian handloom textiles; cheaper 'kani-style' shawls are printed or machine-woven. Look for a GI tag, a woven rather than printed pattern, and a design that looks the same on both sides.

Sustainability

Slow textile, kept for life

A Kani shawl is made of a natural fibre, woven by hand and meant to last for generations, so it is the opposite of fast fashion. Its main sustainability challenge is people: the craft depends on trained weavers and pattern readers, and fewer young people are learning it.

Products

  • Kani shawls: Full-size patterned pashmina shawls
  • Kani stoles: Narrower pieces with woven borders
  • Kani scarves: Lighter, smaller pieces

Words to know

  • Kani: A small wooden spool; also the weaving technique and the village Kanihama.
  • Talim: The coded chart that guides the weavers.
  • Naqash: The designer who draws the pattern.
  • Buta: The teardrop or paisley flower motif.
  • Twill: A weave with a diagonal line, the base of kani shawls.
  • Tapestry weave: A weave where the weft threads form the pattern and do not run across the whole width.

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