“It is still a dream, but I hope it turns out to be a reality. I do not know much about the president, but I just felt that I should gift him a scarf made of silk,” he said.
The unique USP of the scarf is that it weighs just around 35 gm which can easily fit into a match box. It is not just for the president but also for the first lady Michelle Obama. For her, he is trying to weave a silk sari measuring 5.5 metre (which again can fit inside a match box) and weighs not more than 50 gm.
He says that he is not using any colour to have the authenticity and retain the roughness and original colour of silk. The scarf is made, but Narayanappa is yet to weave the sari. “I will just make designs with the jari and try to make a very simple saree,” he added.
While a normal silk yarn is weaved from multiple filaments produced with 24 cocoons, this fabric has two filaments with only three cocoons, making it the lightest. He says that preparing raw silk is an art and weaving the delicate filaments into yarn is huge task as it has delicate filaments. “We prepared a special warp and weft with two cocoons and one cocoon respectively. It was a real challenge to keep the threads from breaking while weaving. I couldn’t have achieved this without the assistance of my wife Kamalamma, who is also an expert weaver,” added Narayanappa.
It took him 20 rigorous days to complete the scarf, and will take two months to finish the saree.
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