A demonstration on weaving a designer silk sari on a specially designed handloom developed by Karappan, an entrepreneur turned weaver of Sirumugai in Coimbatore, was the highlight of the day-long workshop organised by the Weavers Service Centre attached to the Union Ministry of Textiles at the campus of the Indian Institute of Handloom Technology (IIHT) in Salem recently.
The speciality of the loom is that it is a semi-automatic handloom without treadles and can lift the jacquard on its own to design saris, just by the movement of the slay.
Another speciality of the loom is that power can be produced with the help of dynamo during the rotation of the fly wheel in the handloom, by which lights necessary for the loom and house of the weaver can be lit.
The dynamo could illuminate LED bulbs fixed on the looms and could also produce the power needed for lighting two tube lights.
Mr. Karappan’s new loom can be operated using a single hand and leg instead of the traditional looms where the weaver has to use both the hands and legs.
Suggestions
After inventing the loom, Mr. Karappan, who has been in this field for about five decades, developed it further with suggestions provided by the experts of the Weavers Service Centre (WSC), Salem. Underlining the importance of the unique loom, the WSC has already installed the same at the IIHT campus with a view to encourage new inventors and to popularise the invention among the weavers’ fraternity for the benefit of the industry. The unique loom has already become popular among the weavers and Mr. Karappan has started receiving orders.
