Damside-17, Pokhara

The Artisans Who Make Your Sweater

Compiled from the workshop's own published maker profiles16 named makers

Sixteen makers in the Pokhara workshop have a published profile with a named department, a described task and a stated monthly output. Eight of them work on sweaters. This page names all sixteen, says which station each one works, and says plainly which eight did not make your sweater. Every fact below links back to the profile it came from.

On this page

The four stations your sweater passes through
The eight makers on the sweater line
Eight more named makers, and what they actually make
What we will not claim
The other 160-odd

The four stations your sweater passes through

Four stations per sweater: knitting 8 garments a month, linking 14, wash and finishing 20, then mending and quality control — A cashmere sweater is not made by one person. Yours passes four departments in one building in Damside-17, Pokhara, at 8, 14 and 20 garments a month per station.

A cashmere sweater is not made by one person, and a brand that tells you it was is either describing a different garment or hoping you will not ask. Yours is assembled across four departments in one building in Damside-17, Pokhara. Here is the order, with the person the workshop publishes for each station.

Knitting and Production — Hira Lal TamangThe panels are knitted on industrial knitting machines. Hira Lal ran knitting machines in a Kathmandu clothing factory for 30 years before he arrived in Pokhara, and he is also the person who repairs them when they stop. He completes about eight cashmere garments a month.
Linking — Rina GurungFront, back, sleeves and neckline are joined into one garment on a linking machine. Every sweater and cardigan in the workshop passes through this station. Rina assembles about 14 garments a month.
Wash and finishing — Sanita Roka ChhetriThe assembled garment is washed and finished. This is the step that sets the hand-feel you notice when you open the parcel, and it is the last chance to change how the sweater drapes. About 20 pieces a month.
Mending and quality control — Renu Tamang, Tulsi Sunar, Maina Thapa and Inn Kumari PoudelDefects are repaired, labels and any buttons are attached, and the garment is inspected before it is packed. Renu Tamang is the maker named in the “Maker's Story” block on the parent's listing for all three men's sweaters — crew neck, V-neck and quarter zip.

How much weight to put on the listing attribution

Each product listing on the parent site carries a Maker's Story block, and it genuinely varies by product — shawls are attributed to Kamli Badai, an embroidery stole to Inn Kumari Poudel, all three men's sweaters to Renu Tamang. But it is not a strict this-person-made-this-item record: a cable-knit throw blanket is attributed to the sweater machine-knitter, and a pair of wool gloves to a maker whose profile covers labelling and mending. Read it as “the workshop puts this person's name to this product”, which is what we have written above, and not as a chain of custody. The four stations described here come from the makers' own department and task fields, which are consistent.

Why this is the only page on the internet that says this

Every fact above is transcribed from the workshop's sixteen published maker profiles, read station by station and reassembled around one question — who makes a men's sweater. The parent publishes the profiles; nobody had put them in production order before. A brand that buys finished sweaters from a trading agent cannot write this page, because it does not know the answer.

The eight makers on the sweater line

These eight have a published profile that names sweaters, cardigans or the garments that pass through knitting, linking, washing and mending. Output figures are the workshop's own, not ours.

Hira Lal Tamang

Knitting / Production

Knits cashmere sweaters, joggers and trousers on industrial knitting machines. Also repairs and maintains all knitting equipment.

Output — About 8 cashmere garments a month
Supports — A family of seven

From Kavre. Drove a taxi in Kathmandu, then operated knitting machines in a Kathmandu clothing factory for 30 years before moving to Pokhara. Needed no training when he joined.

Precisely: He also maintains the machines. When a knitting machine stops, he is the person who restarts it.

Source: Hira Lal Tamang's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Rina Gurung

Linking Section

Assembles knitted panels into complete sweaters and cardigans using a linking machine. Joins front, back, sleeves and neckline into one garment.

Output — About 14 assembled garments a month
Supports — A family of four

Lost her mother five days before her grade 10 board exams and raised her three-year-old brother instead of finishing school. Later endured an abusive marriage and raised her daughter alone. Trained in machine linking at the workshop.

Source: Rina Gurung's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Sanita Roka Chhetri

Wash Section

Handles washing and finishing of completed garments. Also knits cashmere sweaters for women, and caps.

Output — About 20 cashmere pieces a month
Supports — A family of four

Became the sole provider for her family overnight when her husband was paralysed. Had no formal skills; joined the workshop's free training programme and became skilled in both knitting and finishing.

Precisely: The sweaters she knits are the women's line. What she does to yours is the wash and finish — the step that sets how the sweater feels when you open the parcel.

Source: Sanita Roka Chhetri's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Renu Tamang

Mending Section

Mends and finishes cashmere sweaters, ponchos and wool jackets. Repairs any defects before packaging.

Output — About 22 finished pieces a month
Supports — A family of three

Fell from a tree and broke her spine 20 days before the 2072 BS earthquake, and was paralysed from the waist down. Recovered through multiple surgeries and still lives with two steel rods in her spine. Received three months of free training with a food allowance. She walks two hours each way to the workshop.

Source: Renu Tamang's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Tulsi Sunar

Mending Section

Inspects and mends cashmere sweaters, cardigans and coats before they are packed. Repairs any knitting defects.

Output — About 22 pieces a month through quality control
Supports — A family of three

Lives with a spinal disorder that limits her movement, and became the sole breadwinner for her family regardless. Trained in mending and quality control at the workshop.

Source: Tulsi Sunar's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Maina Thapa

Mending Section

Attaches buttons and labels to cardigans and sweaters. Final mending and finishing before packaging.

Output — About 28 finished pieces a month
Supports — A family of three

Left school after grade 3. Raised two children alone for 18 years, cooking at a hotel and then cutting meat and cleaning at a food business before joining the workshop.

Precisely: None of the three men's sweaters has buttons. Her contribution to yours is the labelling and the final mend.

Source: Maina Thapa's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Inn Kumari Poudel

Mending Section

Final quality inspection on shawls, stoles, blankets and ponchos. Also mends and finishes sweaters.

Output — About 28 finished pieces a month through QC and finishing
Supports — A family of five

Originally from Raipur, Tanahun. Her husband disappeared 25 years ago and was never traced; she raised her son alone, moved to Pokhara for his education, and joined the workshop's free three-month pashmina and cashmere training programme.

Precisely: Her quality-control remit is the handloom and pashmina output. On sweaters her published role is mending and finishing.

Source: Inn Kumari Poudel's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Sunita Tamang

Creations

Knits sweaters by hand on the Creations line, plus wool gloves, socks, leg warmers and wool jackets.

Output — About 14 pieces a month across cashmere and wool
Supports — A family of three

Cannot read or write; learned to sign her name. Carried bricks and sand on construction sites, with her two daughters beside her, before she was trained at the workshop. Her husband left when she gave birth to daughters rather than a son.

Precisely: Her hand work is the Creations line. It is not the three men's sweaters, which are knitted on machines and assembled on a linking machine — see “What we will not claim” below.

Source: Sunita Tamang's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Eight more named makers, and what they actually make

The workshop's handloom, artisan and pashmina sections weave shawls, stoles, ponchos, mufflers and blankets. Their profiles are the most affecting on the parent's site, and it would be easy to reprint them here and let you assume these hands touched your sweater. They did not. They are named here because a page called The Artisans Who Make Your Sweater is worth nothing if it is not precise about which artisans.

Bikash Poudel

Handloom Section (in charge)

Weaves cashmere shawls, ponchos, mufflers and blankets on a traditional handloom. Trains and supervises the other handloom weavers.

Output — About 8 handwoven pieces a month
Supports — A family of eight

Deaf and mute, as are his brothers and sisters. Took nine months to learn a handloom skill most people learn in two or three, then went on to train more than 15 other weavers and to lead the section. He is also the person called when a loom breaks.

Source: Bikash Poudel's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Atul Harijan

Handloom Section

Weaves cashmere stoles, shawls, mufflers and throws on a traditional handloom.

Output — 8 to 10 handwoven cashmere pieces a month
Supports — A family of five

Deaf and mute since birth. Left school after grade 6 and started work on a Kathmandu handloom at 13; eleven years of experience meant he needed no training when he joined.

Source: Atul Harijan's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Krishna KC

Handloom Section

Weaves cashmere shawls, ponchos, mufflers and large blankets on a traditional handloom.

Output — About 7 handwoven pieces a month
Supports — A family of eight

Born in Baglung, one of four sons and the only one who is deaf and mute. Finished high school, learned sign language at school, and now handles some of the largest pieces including king-size blankets.

Source: Krishna KC's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Ashok Gupta

Handloom Section

Weaves large cashmere scarves, lightweight shawls and multicolour stoles on a traditional handloom.

Output — About 6 handwoven pieces a month
Supports — A family of six

Deaf and mute; his wife is too. From Bilaspur, Palhinandan. Education stopped after grade 6. Worked in agriculture and in a Kathmandu factory, and made and sold bags, before taking up cashmere weaving.

Source: Ashok Gupta's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Bhuwani Prasad Upadhyay

Artisan Section

Crafts cashmere ponchos with detailed designs, including leather accents, turtle neck styles and funnel neck patterns.

Output — About 7 artisan poncho pieces a month
Supports — A family of four

Born deaf and mute in Syangja and studied to grade 8. Painted serpents to sell at Nag Panchami before the workshop found him; his painting is what got him noticed, and he was given three months of handloom training with a food allowance.

Source: Bhuwani Prasad Upadhyay's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Durga Sharma

Artisan Section

Weaves cashmere stoles with embroidery and detailed patterns, and crafts embroidered ponchos and specialty garments.

Output — About 6 artisan pieces a month
Supports — A family of three

Studied to grade 10. Raised a daughter and a son alone for four years, working as a sweeper and house cleaner, until she saw a workshop pamphlet and enrolled in the free three-month training.

Source: Durga Sharma's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Dipak Bashyal

Pashmina Manufacturing Centre

Produces the highest-value pieces in the collection: Jamawar shawls, needle-work stoles and embroidery paisley stoles.

Output — About 3 to 4 fine embroidery pieces a month
Supports — A family of four

Deaf and mute, and the only person in his family with a disability. Completed high school. He is the only maker entrusted with the Jamawar shawl line.

Source: Dipak Bashyal's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

Kamli Badai

Pashmina Manufacturing Centre

Produces cashmere embroidery stoles, silk embroidery shawls and baby blankets on the pashmina line.

Output — About 6 handcrafted cashmere pieces a month
Supports — A family of three

Deaf and mute since birth, and the breadwinner for her family from a young age. Learned the pashmina craft in two and a half months.

Source: Kamli Badai's maker profile on yeshelpinghand.com

What we will not claim

Provenance copy is the easiest thing in this industry to inflate, so here is what the sources do not support, stated before you find it yourself.

Knitted, not woven, and not hand-knitted. Hira Lal Tamang knits the men's sweaters in the Knitting and Production department, on machines, three to four days a garment. The handloom section is a different part of the workshop and it makes shawls, ponchos, mufflers and blankets. Older copy on the parent catalogue described these sweaters as handloom-woven, which was carried over from that range — a handloom produces flat woven cloth, and a sweater is a knitted structure. Nobody here will call your sweater hand-knitted either: nobody hand-knits fourteen colourways at production scale.
Not hand-linked seams. Rina Gurung's profile says she assembles the panels using a linking machine. Competitors at this price advertise hand-linked seams routinely. We cannot, so we do not.
No certifying body is named. Certification is offered on request; what it certifies and who issues it is to be confirmed. There is no NPIA certification here and there never was — that phrase came from a competitor's marketplace listing, not from Pokhara. More on that on the How to Verify Your Cashmere Is Real page.
No ages, villages, wages or years of service beyond what the profiles state. Where a profile is silent, this page is silent. Several of the sixteen do not give a joining date; we have not estimated one.
No photographs of the makers. We have not been given consent to republish their portraits, so there are none here. Their photographs are on their own profiles, on the workshop's site, where they chose to put them.

The other 160-odd

Yes Helping Hand has trained more than 180 people since 2011, single mothers and differently-abled makers. Sixteen of them have a published profile you can read by name.

Artisans: 180+
Since: 2011
Named profiles: 16

The workshop describes itself as employing more than 180 artisans and has been a social enterprise since 2011. Sixteen of those artisans have a published profile. That is the number we can name, so it is the number on this page. As more profiles are published they will be added here, with the same fields and the same source link — not paraphrased into anonymous copy about “our artisans in the Himalaya”.

A pattern worth noticing, counted across all sixteen profiles rather than asserted: seven are deaf and mute, five are single mothers, two live with spinal injuries, one is the sole provider for a paralysed husband, and one is listed simply as underprivileged and highly skilled. That is all sixteen. Four profiles state a free three-month training programme with a food allowance in those words; two say the maker needed no training at all after decades on a loom or a knitting machine.

It is a considerably less comfortable story than the one usually told about Himalayan cashmere, and it is the reason the workshop's output is small. Three men's sweaters, not thirty, is a consequence of who is employed to make them.

The three sweaters these people make. Renu Tamang is named on the listing of all three.

Men's Crew Neck Cashmere Sweater — $155, 14 colours, S–2XL
Men's V-Neck Cashmere Sweater — $155, 13 colours, S–2XL
Men's Quarter Zip Cashmere Sweater — $120, one free size

Before you order, read the Men's Cashmere Sweater Size Guide & Fit — fit is the single most common complaint in this category, and the free size on the quarter zip will not fit everyone.

Common questions

Who actually makes my cashmere sweater?

Four stations and at least four named people. Hira Lal Tamang knits the panels in the Knitting and Production department. Rina Gurung joins front, back, sleeves and neckline on a linking machine. Sanita Roka Chhetri washes and finishes the garment. Renu Tamang and the mending section repair any defects, attach the labels and inspect it before it is packed.

How many artisans can you name?

Sixteen. The workshop employs more than 180 artisans, and sixteen of them have a published profile with a department, a described task and a stated monthly output. We name those sixteen and nobody else. The rest will be added here as the workshop publishes them.

Is my sweater made by one person?

No. It passes through knitting, linking, washing and mending, and different named people work each of those stations. Any brand claiming a single pair of hands made a machine-knitted, machine-linked sweater is describing a production line and calling it something else.

Is the sweater hand-knitted?

No. The sweaters are knitted in the Knitting and Production department, on machines, by Hira Lal Tamang — his own profile says so, and says each sweater takes him three to four days. Older catalogue copy called them handloom-woven; that term belongs to the shawl, poncho and blanket range, which really is woven on handlooms. Weaving and knitting are different fabrics, not different amounts of effort.

Are the seams hand-linked?

No. Rina Gurung assembles the panels on a linking machine — her published profile says so in those words. That is why the phrase “hand-linked seams” does not appear anywhere on this site, even though competitors in this price band use it freely.