Hand Spinning of Kala Cotton at Khamir

Hand spinning is an ancient technique and it is considered that it started in India. The craft form initially used the hand spindle or drop spindle technique to spin the natural fibres. The equipment like Doshi Charkha (traditional big wheel charkha) or other Kisan Charkha or Peti Charkha (Box Charkha) came into existence later. It was a wide spread practice in Indian villages to hand spin the local fibres like wool and cotton using Charkhas. Each region of state of India has their unique Charkhas.

Khamir’s tryst with hand spinning started with Kala cotton initiative. In 2007, after completing weaver solo exhibitions at New Delhi, we conceived the entire concept and started organising it, the hand spinning on Ambar Chakha was inherent part of the concept. As there were no Ambar spinners available in Kutch, we approached Udyog Bharti, a Khadi organisation based in Gondal city of Saurashtra to help us. They dedicated one of their group of spinners for the process. As payment of Khadi was decided on counts and Kala cotton was a coarse fibre with possibility of thicker count of 20s or less than it, the payment was lower than other Khadi counts of 30s and 40s. Also, there was a lot of struggle on the part of weavers to organise the weaving. We also provided continuous feedback to the hand spinners, which we receive from...