2.3 Making kente

We need to ask this question of any medium, in order to understand what is easily done and what is difficult. Skilled, expensive, innovative. We can’t hope to understand what Kente is, unless we can attempt to see it from the point of view of local producers and sellers and buyers.

An important decision which every weaver has to make is, what kind of cloth is he going to weave? Because it is the design that will determine the colours of the yarns that he has to put on the bobbin and, subsequently, on the wool.

The process, is to put the warp thread into the heddles and the beater and if you do according to the design that you already have in mind.

After putting the warp thread into the various heddles and beater, the whole thing is brought into a loom for the weaver to start to weave it.

There are two sets of heddles. The first set is used in making patterns and the second set is used in being regular weaving, where no patterns are required. Now, in this particular pattern, I’m using both the pattern-making heddles and the regular weaving heddles at the same time.

If you have time to watch the weaver do this piece here, it may take about half an hour or more just to do this piece. I do not know of any weaver who can produce more than this strip in a day of eight hours of hard work. It’s not possible.

And I can assure you that in any given village not more than 10% of the weavers are prepared to weave this, because it takes such a long time. It does!