Veerabasweswari from East Godavari district and Sandhya from Ponduru, Srikakulam district, are among the women handloom weavers who have travelled to Hyderabad for the inauguration of Creyo, a store at the Crafts Council of Telangana premises CCT Spaces. Creyo will stock saris, fabrics and garments woven by the weaver clusters in East Godavari, Srikakulam and Narayanpet, supported by Chitrika foundation.
The women beam with pride when they spot saris woven by them at the store. “Many of us come from families of weavers. I grew up watching my mother and other women work at the loom and I took to it naturally. Weaving is a way of life for me, my mother and my mother-in-law,” says Sandhya. Her speciality is the kuppadam weave of Srikakulam, which is an interlocking technique to design temple borders in contrasting colours.
The kuppadam of Srikakulam is different from that of East Godavari in which the interlocking technique plays up contrasting colours, often without the temple border.
