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Green geometric figures sit across an ecru handwoven ground, with fine green and black pinstripes running the length of the mat and a whipped green edge worked by hand. Samuday Crafts women artisans in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh weave the taat cloth and finish each panel into a 12 x 17.5 inch placemat. The weave is firm enough to sit flat under a serving bowl, and open enough to let the grain of the table read through. Sold as a single mat.
Avoid exposure to moisture and direct sunlight to maintain shape and color. Handwash separately. Do not machine wash.
SKU: SD-TWTM-G-01Style Code: SD-TWTM-GHSN Code: 42022210Region: HardoiState: Uttar pradesh
Curated by Samuday Crafts Pvt Ltd
Each piece is handcrafted, so slight variations in colour, texture and dimension are natural and celebrate its handmade origin.
At 12 x 17.5 inches this is a standard rectangular placemat, sized for one dinner plate with a glass and cutlery beside it. Measure your table before you order. A four-seater of about 48 inches takes four mats with a comfortable gap; a six-seater usually needs the mats set two per long side and one at each end, so plan for six.
The mat is sold singly. Buyers furnishing a whole table should order the quantity they need in one go, because handwoven batches vary slightly in shade between weaving runs.
Green and ecru is a quiet palette that does more work than it looks. Plain white ceramic is the safest partner. Unglazed stoneware, terracotta and brass all sit well against it, and the green in the motif picks up anything living on the table, whether that is a herb pot or a few cut stems. Busy printed crockery fights the weave, so keep the dishes plain and let the mat carry the pattern.
On a dark wood table the ecru ground lifts and the motifs read clearly from across the room. On a pale or glass top the effect is softer and you may want a darker runner underneath to give the mats an edge to sit against.
Layering is simple. A runner down the centre, mats either side, coasters on the outer corner. The weave is thin enough that a stacked mat and runner still sits flat.
Keep it away from standing water and off a sunny windowsill between meals, since both will work on the colour over time. Shake it out after a meal rather than wiping it wet.
This mat is woven in taat, the name the Hardoi weavers use for the coarse handwoven cloth they make on pit and frame looms. Taat is a fabric name in north India rather than a fibre name.
Warping comes first. Yarn is measured, sized and drawn through the reed one thread at a time, which is slow, unglamorous work and sets everything that follows. A misaligned warp shows up as a wandering edge four hours later.
The ecru ground is then woven plain. It is a tight, balanced weave with no pattern in it at all, and it is what gives the mat the stiffness to lie flat under a plate instead of rucking up.
The green figures are the slow part. They are not printed or embroidered on afterwards. As the ground advances, the weaver lays in an extra green weft by hand across only the threads that figure needs, counting the ground threads to place each arm of the eight-point star, then drops back to the plain ground until the next repeat.
The fine green and black pinstripes that run the length of the mat are set the same way, banded at intervals the weaver holds by eye. Turn the mat over and you can see the float threads carried behind each motif. That reverse is the honest tell of hand extra-weft work.
Finishing turns a length of cloth into a mat. The panel is cut to 12 x 17.5 inches and the raw edge is whipped closed in green thread by hand, stitch by stitch, all the way round. It is the edge that decides whether a mat survives a year of washing, and it is the reason this piece costs more than a machine-hemmed placemat.
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