Making of Banana fibre

A number of clusters (consisting of women artisans) in different villages (mainly in Karnataka, India) are involved in the making of Banana fibre fabric. 

Raw material : Once the fruits are harvested, the bark from the banana trees are collected from different villages and brought to the workshop. 

Process :

• The bark turns into fibre in the hands of the highly experienced artisans.
• The fibre is made into yarn using the spinning wheel.
• This yarn is then hand-woven or hand loomed on the traditional loom to make the banana fibre fabric. 
• At times, while looming, other natural fibres like river grass, hibiscus etc are used to give a different look and texture to the fabric.
• Mostly cotton threads of varied colours are used as warp.

The entire process is handmade thereby giving a unique design to the products made from it. It is extremely rigorous and labour intensive

Weaving/looming banana fibre fabric is time-consuming and needs a lot of skill. It’s easy to make numerous products in a day in a mechanised industry but, it takes many days of meticulous effort to create handmade & hand loomed banana fibre products.