Textile Study Visit to Florence and Prato

28th September – 3rd October 2008 (5 Nights)
Part of a series of visits to towns and cities on the European Textile Network.

After last year’s successful study visit to Prato we are now combining it with Florence; where the emphasis will be on silk, with private visits to the Lisio Foundation and the studios and workshops of other designers and hand weavers of this most exotic and historic material. Prato’s National Textile Museum and the Datini Archive, the largest medieval archive in the world, is within easy walking distance of the hotel. Guided visits in English will be provided.

Time will also be available, for those who might wish, to see some of Florence’s and Prato’s galleries, churches and other world-famous cultural highlights. Dr Alan Ford, Art Historian, will be on hand as guide.

Hotel:
5 nights B&B at the 3-Star Hotel Giardino, Via Magnolfi Gaetano, 4, 59100 Prato (PO), Italy Tel: +39 0574 606576, which helped make last year’s visit so successful. (next to the Cathedral of St Stephen in the heart of the walled, medieval city).

Flights:
Return Flights from Birmingham Airport to Pisa Airport with connections to and from the Hotel in Prato. (Return coach connections from the Stroud area to Birmingham Airport will be arranged for an additional charge) Price includes one hold bag of up to 15K plus hand luggage.

Price:
Approximately £430 per person sharing a Twin Room. Single Rooms will incur a Single Room Supplement of approximately £80 per person (approximately £510 in all).

Not included:
Travel Insurance; Rail travel between Prato and Florence, (about 20K);
Meals other than B&B; Entrances to museums.

Deposit:
£120 with the balance payable by 15th August. Please book early, as the party is limited to 16 persons.

Contact:
Jane Ford,
Bree Cottage,
Selsley East,
Stroud, Glos GL5 5LP.

Telephone: 01453 766540
Email: alanford@ukonline.co.uk

Tamil Nadu March 2008 - tour report

In March of this year 7 intrepid STT members set off to Tamil Nadu in southern India to look at great city temples and to meet people involved in the textile and cloth cottage industries.

Using Chennai (Madras) as our base we toured around the northern part of Tamil Nadu marvelling at the skills of our driver as he flowed through seemingly impassable traffic, even dodging swathes of peanuts and rice harvests spread on the bridges to dry in the sun.

We passed through city and towns filled with bustle and people and hectic chaos and through the countryside where the rice harvest was coming in and new rice being planted. There is always something interesting to see in India and the oxen were particular favourites. They pull huge loads and are tall, mostly white and elegant with their horns painted and bells at the tips. We worried a lot about all the plastic rubbish just lying in the streets and fields – a huge issue for India to deal with.

On the textile front we visited an artist in her family workshop to see the 18 stages of Kalam Kari work using vegetable and mineral dyes to build up intricate pictures on cotton and silk. We were welcomed into the houses of a silk weaving village where people were really proud of their work and wanted us to see every aspect of what they do to make sumptuous silk sarees. And in a little town further south 8 unexpected strange people from England were taken in for food and refreshments and many hours of touring handloom and power loom weaving sheds. It was a generous time allotted to us to see the cotton weaving, production and distribution centre for lunghi cloth – checkered and striped cloth worn by most working men.

People were delighted that we were so interested in their work and that we enjoyed watching cloth folding, running the thread on to spindles, setting up the warp threads for, and all the processes of weaving. We were delighted to be so well taken care of by everyone there and to share extensive knowledge of history and cloth techniques to make a rich and almost overwhelming tour.

There were many parallels to how life would have been in the valleys around Stroud as power loom work took over from handloom weaving. This was an intimate, interlinked and small scale cottage industry which built into a much larger trade as the individual parts came together.

Many thanks to the Textile festival for championing this trip and encouraging others to come on the next two trips planned for November 08 and February 09.

For more information on these forthcoming trips, please contact Camilla Hale, organiser of Kamala Tours
Tel: 01453 751370/07936 505251
Email: sricam2000@yahoo.com