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Design Resource

Weaving Craft of Varanasi

Making of Benarasi Sari

by

IDC, IIT Bombay

Pattern Marking

For centuries, traditional designs that embellished sarees have been drawn on grid paper. For these drawings, a craftsman makes perforated cards - a kind of binary system, ancient picasa of the computer - that guides threads through the handloom according to the motif. These are called ‘naksha patta’. Each card corresponds to a single line of weaving. A design generally involves a few hundred cards. These punched cards are characteristic of the Jacquard loom.

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