Kutnu Fabric Production Stages
Kutnu fabric requires expertise and hard labor to produce. First, robe bobbins are turned into hank by ripping with a four-cornered tool named “devre. Hank robes are kept in 100 C degree temperature dyeing boilers. After drying part, robes are revised by professionals in order to be strong enough to be weaved on loom. After being hackled, robes become ready to be weaved.
The next step is dying the hanks. The main colour is yellow, which makes the cloth eye- catchingly bright. The other colors are dyed one after another: red, purple, green, blue, black, bordeaux, and pink.
After drying, the dyed hanks go to the “Mezekçiler” or sizers. The sizing process is aimed at preventing the yarns from breaking and entangling with one another during weaving. The sizers dip the hanks in a mixture of apricot resin and then squeeze them. The resin also makes the cloth shiny. The sized hanks are wound onto wooden poles called “milef”, making what is called “kavuk” (turbans). To allow the sizing paste to thoroughly penetrate the yarn, the kavuk are kept damp for one day by wrapping them in plastic bags.
The silk yarn is still not ready to be woven. Before going on the loom it must be unwound once more and any tangles undone i.e. put in order “tertip”. This procedure involves stretching the yarn from the kavuk between two 50 cm long sticks that are fixed to the wall 20 meters apart. The tautened yarns are combed by hand to remove any tangles and then rewound onto the poles. After this process the new kavuk are called “şak”. The dried and corrected “şak” are wound onto reels called “levent” and hung on the loom. Attaching the warps that will form the top to bottom threads of the kutnu to the loom also requires special expertise.
The process of threading the warp yarn onto the heddle and weaver’s reed/comb according to the design to be woven, and mounting it on the loom is known as drawing in. The heddle is a device with small holes the threads pass through, and harness which enables the warps to be raised or lowered according to the type of weave. The yarns are put through the heddle eyes by experts who, according to the required frame count of the cloth to be woven, know very well which color and number of threads must be put through which heddle eye for any certain pattern of cloth. After being threaded through the necessary holes, the yarns are then passed through the weaver’s reed/comb. According to the pattern and density of the fabric, 4, 5 or 6 threads each are passed through each tooth of the comb according to the predetermined pattern, and the drawing in is complete. Drawing in is the most difficult step in the preparation for weaving. Following these tiring processes, the warp yarn is ready to be woven. The next step is the preparation of the thread that will become the weft.
In kutnu weaving, cotton thread is generally used for the weft. It may be sized in starch and water to increase the resistance and stiffness of the cloth. The final stage before weaving begins is the winding of the weft thread onto the spool. This used to be performed by apprentices using hand pulleys, but is now done on bobbin winders. The spool is placed on the shuttle and weaving begins. The warp threads are separated by the heddle and the weft threads between them are beaten or pressed down by the comb. When the weft on the spool runs out, the loom is stopped and a new one put on. In this way, the kutnu is woven in an unceasing rhythm. The technique used is the satin type.
The newly-woven kutnu is pressed flat by passing between hot rollers, after which it is finally ready to take its place on the shop shelves.