Kashmiri Pashmina Shawls With Fine Silk and Gold Embroidery. We call it a King of Wool, the Wool is Selected up on the Himalaya Mountains and after Weaving it we do different design to make it more attractive and is unquestionably the rarest in the world.
Weaving Our weaving is all done by hand on looms specially made for our work. We traveled to a village near the temple city of Varanasi in India to find a loom maker from the old school to build our looms to meet our exacting standards. Most textile production has been converted to power looms, but pashmina yarn is too fragile for the force of the power loom. Our weaving master is from a very long line of master weavers, dating back to the wave of Mughal craftspeople that came to India around the time of the construction of the Taj Mahal. Our other weavers are young Nepali-Tibetan women. They also do the finishing of the ends on our shawls and blankets. It takes one person an entire day to twist and knot the ends of one shawl.
Dying Dyeing at Pashm is also done by hand, each piece individually. Our dyer has over 40 years of experience and infinite patience. We use Sandoz metal-free and azo-free dyes. This is the Swiss company's new generation of eco-friendly dyes. The water we use for dyeing is pumped up from 80 ft beneath the surface. Pure Himalayan water. The Sandoz dyes are very fast to light and warm water washing. We dye at a temperature just below boiling for about 40 minutes. The woven item is first rinsed in hot water, then in cool water, and finally washed with an Aveda shampoo. We dye in a range of 170 colors, mostly based on nature: actual flowers, iridescent feathers, minerals, and autumn leaves, as well as current fashion colors including lip and eye colors.
