Myers walked through the steps taken by a woman weaver using a backstrap loom to make a dress for her daughter to wear to a festival. She probably uses cotton thread, some of which was already dyed when purchased and some that she dyes with commercial powder dyes, vegetable dyes or a combination. Making the vegetable dyes that give better color is a multi-step process. The internal market for such labor-intensive local textiles. Traditionally all women were weavers, but now it's common for only the oldest sister to learn to weave so she can earn money teaching and making cloth to sell.
Weavers make cloth for their household and their family's clothing.
Women who marry receive textiles as gifts, Myers said, and the bride uses these cloths as needed. Women's role producing cloth is closely related to their reproductive nature, in contrast to men's role in cutting, stitching, painting and weaving, which is much more formalized, she said. Their work decorates monasteries and shrines. Religious subjects are not open to innovation, they are not individualized. Most of the work at White Lotus was created by women, but there is a wonderful mandala and several marvelous portable scroll religious paintings edged with brocade created by men.