carpet of banana fibre, hemp and jute
Bausol makes custom made rugs and carpets for boutiques, hotels and houses, made by the weavers of Nepal and North India and from all sorts of natural materials, like banana fibres, hemp and jute.
All varieties of banana plants have fibres in abundance. These fibres are obtained after the fruit is harvested and fall in the group of bast fibres. In Nepal, the trunk of the banana plant is harvested instead of the shoots. Small pieces of these trunks are put through a softening process for mechanical extraction of the fibres, which are then bleached and dried. The fibres obtained thus have appearance similar to silk and has become popular as banana silk fibre yarn. The fibres are refined, processed and skeined mostly by the Nepalese women.
Only the aged bark or the decaying outer layers of the banana plant are harvested and soaked in water to quicken the natural process. When all the chlorophyll, green pigments used in photosynthesis, is dissolved, only the cellulose fibres remain. They are extruded into pulp so that they may become suitable for spinning into yarn. The fibres have high textural quality similar to silk and as such employed in making high end rugs. These traditional rugs are woven by hand-knotted methods again by the women of Nepal.
The appearance of banana fibre is similar to that of bamboo fibre and ramie fibre, but its fineness and spinnability is better than the two. The chemical composition of banana fibre is cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The fibre is very strong and has a somewhat shiny appearance depending upon the extraction and spinning process. It is lightweight and has strong moisture absorption quality. It is biodegradable and has no negative effect on environment, thus can be categorized as eco-friendly fibre. Its average fineness is 2400 Nm and it can be spun through almost all the methods of spinning including ring spinning, open-end spinning, bast fibre spinning, and semi-worsted spinning among others.
Sensorial
Technical
Environmental