Portfolio: Embroidery

Basic Embroidery:

Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. A characteristic of embroidery is that the basic techniques or stitches of the earliest work—chain stitch, buttonhole or blanket stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, cross stitch—remain the fundamental techniques of hand embroidery today.

Few Samples :

Motif with kundans, pipes, sequences, beads, zardosi

Motif with french knots, pistol knots, bullion knots, coral, satin, long and short, spiderweb and spider woven stitches.

Photoframe motif with blanket and variations of blanket, heavy chain, twisted chain, cable chain, threaded chain, button hole and laizy daizy stitches.

Motif with cross, eyelet, sheff and couching stitches.

Flower basket motif with chain, open chain, magic chain, split chain, zigzag chain and stem stitches.

Peacock motif with feather, double feather, closed feather, fly and fishbone stitches.

Boat motif with running, whipped running, back, threaded back and pekinese stitches.

Traditional Embroidery:

Kantha Work: Kantha is a type of embroidery popular in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, India. The use of kantha is popular in saris traditionally worn by women in Bengal. the traditional form of kantha embroidery was done with soft dhotis and saris, with simple running stitch along with edges. The entire cloth is filled with running stitches, employed with beautiful motifs of flowers, animals, birds and geometric shapes as well as themes from everyday activities. It is applied to a wider range of garments such as sarees , dupatta, shirts, bedding and other furnishing fabrics, mostly using cotton and silk.

Kashida work: Kashmiri embroidery is well known for the beauty of its color, texture, design and technique. probably, the best known Indian embroidery is the " KASHIDA OF KASHMIR". This embroidery is revealed in shawls. The motifs are mainly from nature; animal and human figures were not seen in this embroidery. Bird motifs were seen on shawls (like parrots, woodpeckers and kingfishers). Floral motifs like lily, lotus, iris, saffron flower and tulips were mostly used. Other designs like grapes, apples, cherries and almonds were their favorites. The chinar leaf is considered as their imp motif.

The embroidery is done on silk, cotton and wool fabrics. Colorful fabrics like white(sufed), green(zingari), purple(uder), blue(ferozi), yellow(zard), and black(mushki). The threads used were wool cotton and silk.

Kasuti Work: Kasuti embroidery is typical traditional form of art mainly practiced in Karnataka. Kasuti shows up best on thick materials against dark Indian shades. The larger designs feature the elephant with howdah, the temple, the basil (Tulsi) plant platform, Nandi the sacred bull etc all near the pallu.

Kutch Work: Kachchh has a strong tradition of crafts. Kutch (Kachchh) is district of Gujarat state in Western India. Some of the embroideries still being produced in the region are Kapdi, jadeja, Gadhvi, Ahir, Pakko, Neran, Kambira, Khudi, Teba, Katri, Chopat, Gotan, Mukko, Soof, Kharek, Jat- Gracia, Jat- Fakirani, Noday, Jat Daneta.

Applique Work: Applique is a smaller ornament applied to another surface.

Smocking: Smocking is an embroidery technique used to gather fabric so that it can stretch. Before elastic smocking was commonly used in cuffs, bodice and neckline in garments where buttons were undesirable.