Khesh weaving originated in Birbhum, West Bengal. It is a sustainable practice where old saree scraps or discraded sarees are used create woven products. According to Birbhum’s traditional weavers who learned the craft from their fathers, Khesh was first practiced in Shilpa Sadan in the early 1920s. Rabindranath Tagore established this vocational training facility at Sriniketan to empower women and give a market to the local community.

Female members of the weaver’s family do the labour intensive ripping procedure. To speed up the procedure, certain shortcuts have been discovered. First, the saree is split into five to six divisions lenthwise. These divisions are split further into thin strips by pulling and tearing the incisions in opposite directions. A saree produces 75 to 80 strips. . It takes up to 3.5 pieces of fabric (saree or dhotis) to make a ‘piece’ of Khesh fabric which is about 2 meters.