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BURMESE TEXTILES.
17

side by a narrower one, 1.5 cm. (⅝in.) made up of four stripes of yellow and one of green on the red ground. The lacing stitch, shewn in Fig. 6a, used to join the edges is red, except where the silk stripe occurs, then, so that the decorative value of it may not be lost, yellow is used.

GS 57 (Fig. 7). A young woman's upper garment is shewn in Fig. 7, (p. 7) and is particularly interesting on account of the varied methods employed in its decoration. The garment is made of narrow, black, native cloth, 36.7 cm. (14¼in.) wide and is very simply put together, a strip being placed over each shoulder and then joined down the sides below the arms and down the centres of the front and back, leaving a V-shaped opening for the head to go through. The edges of this opening and the armholes are strengthened and ornamented by the addition of a plaited braid in blue, then two rows of coarse running stitches in yellow and green respectively, and pairs of long, white seeds (Job's tears) placed under these stitches. An imported brass button and a loop of the braid ornament the point of the neck opening, and tassels, made by fraying out the blue braid, finish off the bottom of the armholes.

Fig. 14. Details of G.S. 60.


The bottom edge of the garment is treated quite differently, having first, a woven border in which the pattern is produced by a white or black weft thread being brought to the surface and passing over groups of warp threads as in a damask or reversible cloth, and below that a tufted braid in which all colours are mingled. The braid has been worked in the same way as on Eastern carpet, a cluster of threads being knotted on to each group of warps, then one or two picks of weft made to keep them in their place, and these processes repeated alternately for a sufficient space, the ends being clipped evenly afterwards.

GS 59 is a similar garment belonging to another member of the Taung-yo tribe. Its chief point of interest lies in the neatly worked border and fringed edge at the waist. It is a particularly small garment (measuring 45 cm. by 41 cm.) made of two widths, each 20.5 cm. (8 1/16in.), of firmly woven native cloth in black.