books.google.co.uk - Songket textiles are gleaming prestige cloths created when hand-loom weavers add metal-wrapped threads across the weft to build up intricate motif bands of geometric and botanical designs. The supplementary wefts are gold-wrapped silk or fine cotton yarns; silver-wrapped threads are also found in some...http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Gold_cloths_of_Sumatra.html?id=pgu6c4qZMkYC&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareGold cloths of Sumatra
Songket textiles are gleaming prestige cloths created when hand-loom weavers add metal-wrapped threads across the weft to build up intricate motif bands of geometric and botanical designs. The supplementary wefts are gold-wrapped silk or fine cotton yarns; silver-wrapped threads are also found in some of Indonesia's old songket weaving regions. Employing a weaving technique that is hundreds of years old in Malaysia, Sumatra, coastal Kalimantan, and east Bali and nearby islands, songket artistry is a thriving art form. Chapters focus on contemporary songket craft by Minangkabau, Palembang and Jambi weavers, set against a background of nineteenth-century songket weaving excellence.
Susan Rodgers is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Holy Cross College and coeditor, most recently, of "Indonesian Religions in Transition" (1987).
Bibliographic information
Title
Gold cloths of Sumatra: Indonesia's songkets from ceremony to commodity
