During the lockdown, he has revived an old weaving technique called petni. Instead of a silk saree, he made a saree that has body cotton and double coloured border. “Petni is one of the traditional weaving methods sarees will get two sections of colours in the long way of body warp. The border part will be in one colour and the remaining body part in another colour. The border will be woven into the saree using petni method.Weavers don’t follow this method because of time constraints. Since it is lockdown and I have got enough time on hand, I decided to revive petni weaving. The sari that we weaved has fine body cotton and a double coloured brocaded silk border. Apart from petni method, I have also used a double korvai technique to weave the borders and pallu into the body of the sari. The saree was woven using a 140 count cotton thread. There will be only one border colour for most of the Kancheepuram sarees. But I have given two - mustard and a dark maroon border. In the mustard border, I have used thread work without zari and it has elephant and peacock traditional designs. The other border is dark maroon with pure zari border that has koodi, vanki and muthu design,” says Krishnamoorthy.

 He took 10 days to finalise the design and set up the loom and completed weaving the saree in 30 days. “I have made only one saree because I wasn’t sure of the textile market. The cost of the saree is between Rs 35,000 to 40,000. If there is demand, we will be making more sarees using this method. Before the lockdown was announced, I have got cotton from Paramakudi. By weaving this saree, I could also engage a few other weavers in Kancheepuram,” he tells us.