Artisan Interaction

Your experience will start at a textile shop with a third generation shop owner whose lives family right behind the store. The shopkeeper asks, “Can you tell the difference between cloth woven painstakingly by hand and a cloth that is spouted out of a power loom?” And then, we meet the weavers. As you walk down the narrow side streets, you will start hear a click-clack sound, faint as first and getting louder as you near the “weaving house.” Stay a while and watch as the weavers intently work the loom, correcting any knot in the cloth. When the loom runs out of thread, watch a specialized weaver join over 600 threads by hand. Sadly, handweaving is a dying craft with the advent of the power looms, which produces clothes faster and cheaper. Help preserve this art through your interaction and support of the weavers.

Each piece is hand made from scratch. First a design is drawn on paper. Silver sheets are then cut into thin strips and curved to form circles, a delicate flower petal or other flowing shapes to match the paper design, all along maintaining the symmerty of the piece. Then what looks like a cookie cutter is welded to silver foil backing, to make the outline of the ornament. Bees wax is filed into the spaces between the silver strips and this is the start of the ornament. Precious and semi-precious stones like rubies, emareld are placed by hand into the wax. Finally the ornament is gilded over with gold “leaf” (sheets of gold). The process is laboreous and involves working with small hand tools. Each ornament goes through ten or more stages in this creation.
Watch the artisans at work, consider buying a piece of jewellery or placing an order for something special for yourself or a loved one!