No, not Shammi, or Shashi, or Vinod, or Dharmendra, or Rajesh, although it is Indian.
I recently acquired a beautiful handmade antique Kashmir shawl, with finely woven pieces sewn together and finished with hand-embroidered gates on all four sides. Indian textiles are just the bomb!
Made in the mid-nineteenth century, it is about six feet square—far too large to wear as a shawl these days, but perfect as a lap throw or bedspread for snuggling under; the wool and pashmina weave is very fine and soft. Mostly, I’ve just been staring at it. The pattern is so intricate that you can look at it for days and keep finding new colors and details.
Here’s a photo from further back, although I can still only fit less than a quarter of it in the frame (the closeups are more representative of the actual colors, too):
So beautiful! I love the contrast between the woven part and the embroidered edge:
Here’s an extreme closeup so you can see the piecework; it’s very difficult to see where the sewn pieces meet from even a short distance.
It reminds me of stained glass. When I’m living on that park bench (thank you, deregulating Republicans!) this shawl will come in handy.
MemsaabStory 