Quilts, throws & hangings

Cashmere shawl with coloured and embroidred design

This shawl is named Check Booti and is made from 100% hand woven and hand embroidred cashmere buy Kahmirloom. This shawl has very fine silk embroidery hand owrked over the full body of the shawl.

True pashmina is another word for the yarn cashmere. Pashmina wool is the softer hair located at the root of the longer hairfrom the changra goat. Each goat produces less than 100 grams of wool fiber. A fine pashmina would require the annual growth of at least three goats to weave one shawl as only a small part at the root of each hair is soft enough to be true pashmina. In spring, nomad herders lovingly comb out the fleece by hand. This is then brought to Kashmir to be carded and spun by hand and woven on traditional hand-looms. This gossamer yarn is too delicate to be treated by any machine. No wonder, then, that it is expensive. What else could it be, when so much skill and time have gone into making a shawl?

All phases of producing pashmina like removing the goats hair, sorting, spinning, weaving, dyeing are done by hand and the scarce availability of pure pashmina make the cost of pure pashmina shawls quite expensive. Pure pashmina is unmistakable for its softness, negligible weight and warmth.

This is a highly skilled profession that remains even today deeply steeped in the Kashmiri Sufi tradition. It can take several years to produce just one piece. Embroidery becomes a form of meditation; of focused attention to the meticulous standards imposed by the art in which every tiny stitch is part of a jewel-like mosaic.