Research On Implementation Of Traditional Bangladeshi Textile Design From Nakshi Kantha By Modern Jacquard Weaving Machine

The term "Nakshi Kantha" is referred to a handmade embroidered quilt which is a 500 years old indigenous craft of Bangladesh.That is actually a recycled textile which is evolved out of thrust to prevent the ancient Bangladeshi People from extreme winter cold by used garments and threads.Traditionally used apparel is being transformed to a beautiful handmade embroidery quilt by the rural women of Bangladesh where they use the surface of the fabric as a canvas to draw their emotion&thoughts by needle&thread.Nakshi Kantha or Embroidered Quilt of Bengal is an exclusive traditional&national craft made by rural women as well as a symbol of rich culture heritage,national treasure&pride of Bangladesh.The craft's own beautiful colors,the selection of yarns,the unique pattern features and exotic style all have certain research value.The craft is an indigenous art of Bangladesh that is deeply related to the tradition,culture&emotions of the country's people.The significance&importance of this craft in Bangladesh is beyond description as every household has at least one traditional handmade quilt which is made by their beloved one that has several applications in daily life along with the important ceremonies.The Nakshi Kantha is used in B angladesh from the birth to death of any individual.In the Bangladeshi tradition the new born babies are used to wrap in a Nakshi Kantha after their birth by the eldest one in the family&also the same use of Nakshi Kantha can be noticed to cover the dead body in some province of Bangladesh.As mentioned before this is an indigenous craft of Bangladesh so it has influenced in its motifs&designs by religious&folk belief.Different Nakshi Kantha has its different application according to its features.One individual kantha is not same with the others due to its regional difference&thoughts of its artisan.The Nakshi Kantha is known for its unique feature of Hand embroidery with vivid color combination.The craft is also famous for its comfortness&storytelling ability that is made with love of their ancestor.Though the traditional Nakshi kantha is basically a household textile invented&made for protecting the ancient Bangladeshi people from winter cold but now this Textile is graving the international textile market commercial.After the revival of this craft in 1980's many women organizations start the commercial production of this craft which is loved&accepted by the mass group of people in Bangladesh.Traditional hand embroidered Nakshi kantha is extremely labor intensive&time-consuming.Wide varieties of patterns,styles&color collocations are vastly using in modern crafts with higher efficiency&productivity whereas Nakshi Kantha is still in a backward situation.It's true that several steps were taking to revive this indigenous craft for international marketing but all the efforts are followed by the traditional way.The commercially produced Nakshi Kantha or the product made by its motif or design for exporting or selling to the local market is also made by hand,create by the rural women of Bangladesh.Though it creates employment for the rural women but still it is time consuming&less productive.Regarding this the market supply is less compare to the demand.Through the study of the literature and the existing finished products,this paper explores the automatic weaving method of the modified designs collected from the Nakshi Kantha which can create a new commercial textile sector for the world.By analyzing and extracting the structural features of motifs,color matching,appearance&finished effects,tries to use of jacquard technology in order to shorten the weaving time&to slash manpower.Therefore,the use of modern weaving technique to conduct an automated production of Nakshi Kantha design,in order to reduce time&increase the production efficiency of weaving,resulting the big volume of supply to meet the demand for all social class has important significance.A detail about Nakshi Kantha including its history,traditional importance,raw materials&quilting technique,manufacturing zones,design analysis,classifications&application comprehend in the different section of this thesis.Regarding this 20 traditional Nakshi Kantha designs are collected from thousands of designs founded through different sources like museum,art gallery,exhibition etc.The designs are then studied broadly to justify the best 5 designs based on its availability of historical information,motif description&conceptual representation.A deep analyzation of the selected 5 designs is taken place again to find out every single detail regarding those.Then the historical information,motif description&conceptual representation of this selected 5 designs are discussed broadly to give a clear view of the ancient Nakshi Kantha design to the reader.Eight individual designs are then developed by the help of Illustrator with Six important themes related to Bangladeshi tradition.The motifs&the conceptual representation used in the modified designs are inspired from those 5 selected designs that is described broadly in the paper too.The modified designs are then sent to modern jacquard weaving machine for implementation with combination of various count of Cotton&Polyester yarn.As the requirements of Nakshi Kantha design,for different portion contains different motifs resulting a couple of motifs were selected to beautify properly a complete design.For automatic processing,32S/2 Cotton yarn is used as warp&various count of Polyester along with Cotton yarn were used as weft to achieve required characteristics of Nakshi kantha.The processing for automatic weaving the selection of process design,technical parameters,yarn length selection,controlling warp&weft yarn tension etc.were conducted complying with the basic characteristics of Nakshi Kantha.Motifs were weaved automatically with the fabric itself.Jacquard automatic weaving for Nakshi kantha design explores to reduce the lead time of weaving or increase the productivity&improve the efficiency of weaving.The formulation of technical specifications,warp&weft yarn combinations were arranged according to the requirements or characteristics of Nakshi Kantha.A mechanical auto shearing machine runs having auto trimming technology which submerges floating threads from the surface on programmed size only and manufactured finished textile with Nakshi Kantha design.Couple of samples have been made to get the suitable result of this thesis using automatic jacquard machine.To complete each experiment for making sample several processes had done.For sampling,the process starts form yarn selection&ends to finish weaved sample.Jacquard Machine at commercial fabrics manufacturing industry.Eight complete Nakshi Kantha design developed through Illustrator software first.Then 4 designs are developed through CAD software for machine placement among them.Formation of EP or weave file is taking place first then the EP file is converted to BMP file which is transformed into JC5 file in the design of gravure file.The gravure display module can read the JC5 file and draw according to the information of the gravure pattern.Multiple colors were selected for each design to make it colorful&gorgeous same as Nakshi Kantha.During color selection the colors found in traditional Nakshi Kantha design is priorities.According to the above-mentioned finished product the following conclusion can be described1.The Nakshi kantha designs are neatly arranged,with unique cultural important&significant theme.Usually,the primary bright colors are getting prioritize in the creation of design such as red,black,blue&white.There are also some differences in the design patterns needed at different part of the complete product.2.A successful implementation of the traditional Nakshi kantha design is achieved through modern Jacquard machine.All the selected modified Nakshi kantha design is weaved successfully through modern automatic machine with fantastic visual effect.3.Traditional Nakshi Kantha's structure is soft in feeling&loose in stitching as it is meant to be weaved by hand.In the final automated Nakshi Kantha design product the hand feel is not soft enough regarding to the traditional one&also the weaving tension seems to be tight due to its critical design construction that can be solved by further softening treatment.4.The jacquard weaving method is used to weave the Nakshi kantha design,according to the extracted yarn weaving process characteristics,the appropriate setting of the processing parameters and fabric weave.5.Though the effect of the final product is same as the Nakshi Kantha design but the manufacturing technique&fabric construction is observed totally different.The traditional Nakshi Kantha design is meant to be embroidered on the surface of a base fabric but here in automation process the motifs are designed together with the main fabric.It can be said that the final product is itself a Nakshi Kantha designed fabric where the total fabric is created by the Nakshi Kantha design.No separate base fabric is found.