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Originally Posted by desertblues
(Excerpts of my travel journal....<snip>
Several silkfactories in Margilan roll out millions of metres of colourful silks; also the bright colors for the traditional long dresses of the Uzbek women. In 1983 a group of Margilani silk workers begin their own workshop, based on traditional methods.
I visit such a workshop. It all begins with the cocoons, obviously. Individual households feed silkworms with fresh mulberry leaves. They bring it to be harvested; by boiling the cocoons, from june till the end of december.
The work on silk is,from old, strictly seperated. Men do the heavy boiling, unwrapping of the silk threads, dyeing, winding and stretching it on looms. Dyeing is done with natural materials: walnuts for the brown color, coccinelle for madder, acacia flower for deep yellow, onion skin for light yellow, indigo etc.I see the same custom as I saw in the bazaar of Samarkand: an old woman waves burning isiriq herbs over the products.. to ward the evil eye of.
The women weave the khatlanas, the 'king of satins' pattern for the Uzbek dresses and they knot silk carpets. One carpet (2x3m)will takes two years to finish.
For Islamic men it is harrar=unclean to wear silk on the skin. But the ancient rich khan's found this: instead of silk thread woven on silk thread, they wear beautiful gowns woven of silk thread on cotton thread = adras. The cotton is then worn next to the skin. These days Uzbek men don't wear silk, even not the cotton/ silk variety.*
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Thank you for the time you take to make your journal so descriptive and informative. I would have loved to see the silk making process and the finished products as they were being made.
Quote:
Originally Posted by desertblues
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(I think it must be past? Eastern now, but this is another planet..... Where am I, who am I?) <snip>
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This really brought home the fact that you are traveling and viewing people and areas that, although in the present, are still mostly as they were in past history.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CRussel
<snip> Meanwhile, travelling vicariously with desertblues. 
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Waiting for my coffee to brew.