A moment, please.
Our hands
A small group of weavers, embroiderers, spinners and dyers we have been fortunate to work with — most of them across the Kashmir valley, one in Ladakh.
No. 01 · Master
Kanihama, Budgam · 41 years at the work
Ghulam Rasool learned the kani loom from his father at twelve. He weaves four pieces a year and refuses to teach anyone who has not first watched him work, in silence, for a season. He keeps his talim — the coded notation that drives the loom — in a notebook with a green cloth cover that has been with him since 1989.
“The pattern is older than I am. I am only the most recent person to carry it forward.”
Pieces in the ledger
1
Read their profile →No. 02 · Embroiderer
Eidgah, Srinagar · 26 years at the work
Shameema works sozni — the finest needlework Kashmir produces. She prefers walnut-dyed thread and works only in daylight, beside a window that faces east. Her father was a copyist of Quranic manuscripts; she says she inherited the steady hand, not the calligraphy.
“If the light is wrong, the thread is wrong. So I wait.”
Pieces in the ledger
12
Read their profile →No. 03 · Weaver
Tral, Pulwama · 33 years at the work
Abdul Aziz weaves jamawar — the long shawl. He is the third generation in his family to do so. His loom occupies the room he was born in. He has never woven the same pattern twice, though he refuses to call this artistry — he says it would be ungenerous to the people who taught him.
Pieces in the ledger
1
Read their profile →No. 04 · Embroiderer
Hawal, Srinagar · 19 years at the work
Rukhsana works aari — the hooked needle — and learned tilla from her aunt. She makes the chain-stitch work that travels around the borders of a stole, and the gold-thread bridal pieces that come out of our atelier in winter. She runs a small group of women in her neighbourhood who finish edges and ties.
“Aari is a conversation between the hook and the cloth. I am only listening in.”
Pieces in the ledger
2
Read their profile →No. 05 · Dyer
Khanqah, Old Srinagar · 38 years at the work
Bashir runs the dye-house. He works only in natural pigments — walnut hulls for browns, indigo for the blues, saffron for the warm yellow, madder root for the dried-rose red, pomegranate skin for the soft golds. He boils, he steeps, he checks the colour against the sun, and he refuses to give us a recipe.
Pieces in the ledger
0
Read their profile →No. 06 · Spinner
Bandipora · 47 years at the work
Haleema spins pashmina yarn on a yinder — the small Kashmiri spinning wheel. The raw fleece arrives from Changthang in Ladakh, full of stiff guard hair; she removes every fibre by hand before the wheel ever sees the wool. She has spun the yarn for nearly every piece in this ledger.
“The yarn knows the loom before the loom does.”
Pieces in the ledger
0
Read their profile →No. 07 · Weaver
Nowshera, Srinagar · 24 years at the work
Yousuf is the youngest weaver in the atelier. He apprenticed under Ghulam Rasool for seven years before he was allowed to take his first piece. He weaves a tighter kani than his teacher — denser, slower — and his work has begun to develop a quiet following among collectors who notice these things.
Pieces in the ledger
1
Read their profile →