Kashmiri Custom
* The Best Gift For Their Children *
In Kashmir, when a girl is born, her parents will start weaving a Kani Shawl until she comes of age and is ready for marriage. The completed Kani Shawl will be offered as part of the dowry, carrying all the family blessings and love.
Kani is named after a tool used in weaving shawls, Kani is a prestigious and unique technique in Kashmir with more than 600 years of history. Kani is a small stick made of natural walnut wood, and is used for weaving coloured threads into different patterns. By analogy with photography, each knot is like a pixel in a digital image, and each knot in a Kani is different and unique. Such remarkable craftsmanship makes it possible for artisans to achieve the accuracy of modern technology with their own hands and eyes several centuries ago.
The weaving method of Kani Shawl is as same as the Persian silk carpet. Therefore, only skillful craftsmen who have at least over 20 years or above experience can weave this type of pash fabric into a shawl. Kani is a small stick made of natural walnut wood, and is used for weaving coloured threads into different patterns.
About the shawl pattern, the craftsmen just play by ear to select the colors and the shape of the flowers and weave it without any written scripts. Therefore, the same pattern is impossible to be copied. That’s why a Kani shawl is so unique.
