Petni Pallu - Kanchipuram technique

 Three different traditional techniques are being practiced by the handloom artisans to weave sarees that has pallu, body and border of silk sarees in solid colours.

• Petni : A technique used extensively in kanchipuram
• Kondi : A technique used around Ilkal. Nearly five thousand knots (2500 an hour) is created with hands to lock the body and pallu warps
• Reku : A technique derived with tie-dye warp used around Dharmavaram

The silk sarees produced with petni, kondu and reku technique will have a thick cross-over type of two inches at the junction of body and pallu and sarees woven with these technique are considered to be high in quality

Recently, a jacquard spindle with a catch-card makes weaving of patterns easy and the tie-and-dye method has replaced Petni. This post will explain a novice to understand the difference between petni pallu and tie-dye (also called bendhu) pallu. 

More technical view below:

Assuming two sarees are to be woven, In the loom, the new warp is set in such a way that the body of the saree 1 is woven. After completing the weaving of required length of body, the loom is stopped to change the colour of the warp. The new warp is twisted with the old warp [The old warp is kept straight in the loom]

The complete process of twisting the new warp, moving the healds and reed, untwisting and joining them again is called Petni.

To complete this with at most perfection, the weaver takes a day or two complete this making it more labour intensive apart from the other techniques (like korvai) to weave the saree

Once the pallu weaving of saree 1 is complete, the pallu of saree 2 is woven and the warp is removed to join new one so that the body of the second saree is woven.