When they are betrothed, they weave their married woman's two-piece costume. The upper part of the blouse will be plain, but the lower third will either be beautifully embroidered or have an intricate woven design if the girl is a Sgaw Karen. If the girl is a Pwo Karen, the woven design will be in the upper part.
Karen women reign supreme among the tribes as skilled weavers. Skirts of the oldest style are woven of homespun thread. Some of the thread is tied with jungle grass, and then dyed with a rust-colored vegetable dye. When woven, this results in ikat patterns that are alternated with stripes of rust-colored thread. Some skirts are woven of commercial thread into very intricate colorful designs, with red predominant. Their distinctive embroidery is mainly created using the satin stitch, tastefully embellished with white rice-shaped Job's-tear seeds.
Sgaw women wear many colorful waist-length strands of beads around their necks and silver bangles on their wrist. Pwo Karen women, on the other hand, wear large quantities of beads wrapped layer upon layer around their necks and tiered down to their waists.
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