Bhutan & Burma

A Bhutanese courtyard, a woman at a back-strap loom, counting threads. Textiles of Bhutan and Burma begin there. Bhutanese cloth is woven by women on back-strap and frame looms, with supplementary-weft patterning so dense it looks embroidered. The kira, the woman’s wrapped dress, is fastened at the shoulders and cinched with a kera belt; the kushuthara, with its brocaded field, is the most formal. Charkhap blankets, pangkhep serving and gift cloths and festival skirts use the same cotton, wool and natural dyes of lac red, indigo and turmeric yellow. From the Kachin hills of Burma come Jinghpaw weavings, and from Papua New Guinea painted tapa barkcloth dance skirts.

The color sits in tight bands and diamonds that read well from across a room. A kira folded over a bench or hung flat in a study brings handspun cotton and wool. Counting, rewarded.