Making Process

Design Resource

Nettipatam Making - Thrissur, Kerala

Forehead Decorations on the Elephants

Prof. Bibhudutta Baral, Divyadarshan C. S. and Sandhya B.

Making Process

Small Nettipattams are made with a canvas as a base for stiffness on which the golden paper cut of the required pattern of nettipatam is pasted and kept aside for drying. Beads are pasted on the outlines of nettipatam for two rounds and then filled with beads throughout in the left over portions. The bigger beads are placed on the two corner portions of the borderer portion of the nettipatam and in the middle it is placed with the triangle shaped fixed beads in between. The separately made woolen thread decoration of various colours as a chain on the string is spread on the nettipatam pattern with spreading the colours coinciding to the colours of the thread on both the sides are pasted to fix properly.

Few woolen thread is cut to even sizes and tied to make the kuchaela (Kuchu in the Kannada language). It is then stitched to the bottom portions of the nettipatam. Red velvet cloth cut of the pattern size is pasted on the backside covering the canvas. Plastic pipes as per the border portions are cut half and then the fancy twine is inserted as a holder, covered with the red velvet cloth. The extra string of the coloured woolen thread is cut and pasted firmly on the pattern made. It is then ready to be hung at homes and even in cars.

The materials required are jute material, Jagathnath cloth (thick cotton cloth locally called) and the red cotton cloth material cut to the forehead length and width. These materials are further stitched together along with the semicircles of copper plated with gold in small size throughout the pattern. After this is evenly spaced the two big semi circles called the vaatakanan or the vaatakinan (locally called) are placed. Mookanan (Trimurti) is placed in between, then the material like the crescent moon shape called Chandrakala locally are placed in the descending order and fixed. There will be about 11 Chandrakala in the traditional nettipatams. The woolen threads of different colours are tied along the edges and then the final finishing of gold is given to the traditional nettipatam.

Flow Chart:

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Nettipatam Making - Thrissur, Kerala