Saree Embroidery #14 - Lotus with Chain Stitch on Blue saree

Hi there,

The significance of the Lotus in Hindu mythology is a very well known fact.  Throughout many cultures over time, the lotus has been a powerful image and a spiritual symbol. In Hindu, Buddhist and Egyptian religions, the lotus is considered a sacred flower.

In Hinduism, Lotus represents the concept of primordial birth from the cosmic waters of creation. Numerous gods and goddess in Hindu pantheon are depicted as sitting on the lotus or carrying it.

Lord Brahma emerging from the navel of Lord Vishnu symbolically represents that life begins in water. Lord Vishnu represents that force which is responsible for all living and non-living. It also symbolically suggests that all living and non living are connected to the ultimate source through an invisible thread but we unfortunately don’t realize it.



Goddess Lakshmi
on a Lotus

Lotus flower is frequently mentioned in the ancient Sanskrit Hindu scriptures, as padma (pink lotus), kamala (red lotus), pundarika (white lotus) and utpala (blue lotus). The earliest reference can be found in the Rg Veda. Goddess Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth and Goddess Saraswathi, the Hindu goddess of Learning are both depicted as seated on a lotus.

Because the lotus rises from unclean water to blossom as a pure, uncontaminated flower, it is a symbol of purity and resurrection.In the same way the lotus flower goes through much in its growth before emerging from dirty water to become a beautiful flower, the individual consciousness does the same on its path to enlightenment as the so-called impurities of unenlightened thinking gradually fade.

My friend, Mrs. Shailaja chose to embroider the divine lotus on her raw silk saree with alternating bands of colors.

Here is the picture of the saree's pallu where she placed two lotus flowers opposite to each other as if arising from the muddy ground but with the clear blue in the backdrop.
                                           Click on the pictures for a larger image..

The Lotus itself is done in very closely stitched Chain stitch covering the entire flower using silk threads in Red and Yellow, with the stem in dark green..

The remaining part of the border between the two shades of material is filled up with a lacy border in chain stitch in the same colors.

The body of the saree which is in dark shiny grey has been filled up with alternating embroidered mirror work.

Which flower do you want to embroider today?  Hope this post inspires you to go flower-hunting!

Saree Embroidery #13 - Weave stitch on Black saree

Hi friends!

I am back after a break! It has been a hectic year with lots of events around me.

But I surely could not forget that my friends and readers are waiting for a new post from me! 
This time I wish to share another of my friend's works. 

Mrs. Shailaja is an avid embroiderer and tries out various designs on her sarees. 

Here is her jet black saree on which she has used the Weave stitch technique to bring out the vibrant colors alive.

Click on the pictures to see a bigger view..

Here is a picture of the entire pallu filled with rows of alternating pink and blue flowers intertwined with delicate greens..

 



A closeup of the last smallest row of flowers in the pallu..

The rest of the saree is filled with a bunch of flowers in the bottom edge while the body of the saree is punctuated at regular intervals with either the pink or the blue smaller flower motifs..

 

A closeup of the pink and blue flowers in the body of the saree..

A closeup of the flower bunch embroidered all along the lower edge of the saree..

Whoever said black was boring??  Think of Black as your base background and you can have a riot of colors pop up to please your eye!

Stay tuned for more posts from me!

Saree Embroidery 11 - Buttonhole wheel flowers

Hi readers,

Here is more on my passion for embroidery on sarees.

I saw this "plain" and "dull" cement-grey colored saree in the shop and suddenly had the idea of decorating it with some nice and simple embroidery! 

So, guess what, I bought the saree, and went ahead with filling its borders, and the pallu with nothing more simple than buttonhole wheel flowers. And the result was very encouraging indeed!

Making flowers out of buttonhole wheels is very simple and can be combined in a variety of ways.

Here is a picture of the border.  Click on the photos for larger images...






I used canary yellow and shaded orange Anchor skeins for the flowers and leaf green color for the leaves and stem.  Here is a closeup picture of the flowers..

This of course is a hand-drawn motif, and I varied each flower a bit to make them unique.


If you want to learn how to make these wheel flowers and also download various combinations of the wheel flowers to form borders, check out this link..
http://inaminuteago.com/stitchcombinations/combinations1.html

 Happy wheeling!:)

Saree Embroidery - 10 - Kasuti/Dharwad stitch

The "Kasuti" style of embroidery originated around the 7th century and is practised mainly in Uttara Kanara district of Karnataka in India, especially in Dharwad and Bijapur.   Therefore, this style is sometimes called the "Dharwad" stitch.  This embroidery is done mainly on the popular Indian handloom sarees called the "Ilkal/Irkal" sarees.

The geometric designs of Kasuti are taken from the temple sculptures. The motifs here range from architectural designs to a cradle and from an elephant to a squirrel. The main motifs are religious and are found to be larger near the pallu,like the elephant with howdah, the temple, the basil (Tulsi) plant platform, Nandi the sacred bull, gopuram, chariot palanquin, lamps and conch shells, etc.  As they move downwards in a sari they get smaller and smaller, like flowers, birds, animals and a large variety of geometrical designs.  The motifs have to be completed as the stitching line comes back to fill in the blank spaces.

Vertical, horizontal, and diagonal stitches are used. The stitches commonly used are the negi, the gavanti, the menthi and the murgi.

• Gavanti is the most commonly used double running stitch and is worked in horizontal and vertical directions. 
• Murgi is the zigzag done within the mending stitch, similar to gavanti. 
• Negi is the ordinary running stitch. It is used for large designs and the overall effect is of a woven design by extra weft threads. In fact negi is an off-shoot of the word `ney` which in Karnataka means weaving. 
• Menthu is a cross-stitch which is closely done by counting of the warp and two weft threads, mainly used in architectural patterns. 

Here are two of my sarees with Kasuti embroidery.  I have used only two types of stitches here, the Gavanti and the Murgi.

The first one is a synthetic silk saree with yellow to red shade.

And the pattern for the embroidery is a random stylized motif.

The motifs run all along the lower border of the saree.

Only one thread color was used i.e. White.


Here is a closeup of the motif..

















The second one is a plain jet-black colored georgette saree.

The pattern chosen here is of a medicine capsule.

The Anchor embroidery thread colors used here were White and Orange.

The same pattern has been used throughout the lower border of the saree, as well as in the pallu by forming a pyramidal shape.

The thread colors were used alternately to give a contrasting effect.

Here are pictures of the saree pallu, the border, and closeups of the motifs.. 

Here is more info and pictures about the Kasuti embroidery style:

• Chitralakshana >>
• Wikipedia >>
• An excellent tutorial by Sarah >>

Saree Embroidery - 9 - Kantha Bengali Embroidery #3

Continuing my series on Saree embroidery techniques and designs, here is another of my silk sarees where the Kantha Bengali embroidery technique has been used.

The base material used is an English pink silk saree.  Here is a picture of the saree.

The motif worked in Kantha stitch is quite large, so the pattern has been repeated throughout the lower border of the saree, and in the pallu too.

Only three colors apart from black have been used to embroider the motifs: dark green for the leaves, deep red for the flowers and baby pink for the lower level flowers.

Black as usual has been used to outline the stems and the edges of the flowers and leaves.

The kantha stitch used is the basic running stitch.

For more info on this, check out Wikipedia >>

Saree embroidery - 8 - Basque stitch

Chain stitch is a very common embroidery technique used in a variety of settings.  It lends itself well to all kinds of decor, be it dresses, curtains, bed linen, curtain embroidery etc.  Of the numerous variations in Chain stitch, one is called the Basque stitch. 

I used  the Basque stitch to create a continuous running band of spirals for my silk saree. My silk saree is a algae-green-leaf color with a printed border and pallu in green-white-orange colors.

Click on the pictures to see larger images...

The Basque stitch is a a combination of twisted chain stitch and buttonhole stitch, upside down.Note that the chains face outward and are hooked onto the running stem.

To add a touch of glamor to a seemingly dull saree, I set out to embroider simple concentric circles.

I stitched a pair of circles throughout the length of the saree, and a long band of circles attached to each other at the beginning of the pallu, in a vertical line.

The threads used were Anchor shaded colors  #01219 and #01220, since these shaded threads had all the colors which the saree itself had.

Finally, to add some pizzazz, I glued on some spindle-shaped kundan stones/ Rhinestones in bright yellow/orange color along the border which would be visible in the front of the saree when one wears it, and kundan/rhinestone flowers on the motifs in the saree pallu.

This is a layout chart for tracing out the spiral arrangement on the saree.

Here is an excellent simple video tutorial on the Basque stitch technique by Mary Corbet on her blog - Needle 'n Thread.

Saree Embroidery - 7 - Kantha Bengali embroidery #2

In the pile of my Kantha embroidered sarees, here is the second one where my embroidery has taken up the length of the entire saree.  The saree is a light beige-colored silk one which lends itself well to highlight the whole design repeating itself all over.

An overview of my saree embroidered in Kantha style

The only stitch used here in my saree was the running stitch used to fill in the motifs, which are also outlined with running stitch to demarcate the various shapes.  The colors used for the embroidery were pink, blue and orange for the flowers, green for the leaves and dark brown for the stems.

Closeup of the embroidery on my saree

A view of my entire saree filled up with the same embroidery motif

Kantha embroidery is a traditional style of Indian embroidery from West Bengal, and was essentially used to stitch together old clothing into layers to form quilts. Therefore, most of the motifs in this style are flowers, birds and animals.

The stitches too are quite simple, and one can learn them easily and adapt them to a variety of designs to suit individual creativity.


Nowadays, kantha-embroidered sarees especially on silk are very popular and the most common colors are in shades of whites to browns.
Read more here>> and here>>

This picture is from the Katna's Kantha website, highlighting the various Kantha motifs used traditionally.  The website also has photos of the entire process of making the kantha sarees etc.

Chitra's blog also has a big list of the various stitches she has used in Kantha, to achieve different effects.

Here is a beautiful Picasa web album on the many variants of Kantha embroidery on sarees..

Saree embroidery - 6 - Flowers in Fabric paint

In continuation with my previous posts on Saree embroidery, here is another creation. Click on the pictures for larger views...

This time however, instead of filling in the motifs with embroidery, I opted to just fill them with Fevicryl Fabric paint, for a dramatic effect.

The saree is a cotton leaf-green colored one with silvery white borders.

I therefore used Silver-colored fabric paint for the motifs to break the monotonous green all along the length of the saree.

The motifs used are very simple free-hand drawings, which were traced onto the saree at regular intervals.

I have used two similar motifs, one small and one big alternatively.  Closeup pictures of both motifs are displayed below.

For the saree pallu, I repeated the bigger motif in a single line, rotating each alternatively, as shown in the first picture above.

Saree Embroidery - 5 - Painted motifs with embroidered borders

The Indian saree, as I had mentioned previously, lends itself to a plethora of experimentation.  Traditionally, we fill in a motif with embroidery stitches, generally the satin stitch, or the herringbone stitch.

Here is a variation where you fill in the motif with fabric paint, and then embroider the edges, to get a different effect.

The Saree pallu with corners

Here is one of my sarees, in plain gold color, with the motif of an Indian girl drinking water from a pitcher on the pallu.

Girl with water pitcher

The flower bunch in the pallu corner

Saree pallu corner and border

Trace out the design onto the saree, and fill in the various motifs with the desired colors of fabric paints.

The colors used here are Fevicryl fabric paints of colors black, dark green, orange and purple here.  

When the paint is dry, embroider the edges of the motifs using either free-style hand embroidery or machine zigzag stitch as shown here.

The border of the entire saree is a series of interlinked leaves and flowers.

The orange and green colored motifs are placed at even intervals throughout the length of the saree.

Orange painted motif

Green painted motif

Saree Embroidery - 4 - Herringbone stitch

Herringbone stitch is widely used in hand embroideries and crazy patchwork creations.  Herringbone stitch is also known as Mossoul stitch, Persian stitch, Russian stitch, Russian cross stitch, plaited stitch, catch stitch and witch stitch.  The stitch has also been adapted in crochet and knitting and cross-stitch variations.

When I received this starched off-white cotton saree, as a gift from an aunt, with its rich Indian traditional printed pallu and border tipped with a gold/Zari border on both sides, I had an idea.  Why not fill in the plain white space with some exciting embroidery?

My saree with herringbone stitch embroidery

First, I drew a traditional Indian motif onto paper for tracing.

I adapted the Herringbone stitch to fill up this traditional Indian motif using two contrasting colors seen in my saree.

I used maroon and green colored silk threads to embroider the motif at regular intervals on the saree.

Closeup of the embroidered motif

Saree pallu with beads

Finally I embellished the saree further by gluing on flat-backed 4mm size ruby-red beads (available in craft shops) near and in-between the motifs and also in the centers of the printed motifs in the saree pallu. 

Closeup of bead glued on saree

A picture of ruby red beads

More info about Herringbone Stitch in

• Sharon B's dictionary >>
• Stitch School >>
• Sarah's Hand embroidery tutorials >>

Herringbone stitch worked on the reverse of the fabric and closed will resemble the traditional Chikankari embroidery work of Lucknow.  Check out this amazing tutorial for working out Chikan >>