Friday, December 18, 2009

Applique Work

I am back with another sari. Again it is from Bengal. It is a pink cotton sari.. The cottons of Bengal are very famous. Especially the saris. This one I am going to show is light pink colour with a light green border. It has borders on both sides. Actually this makes any sari a bit heavy. Therefore I don't prefer a sari with borders on both sides. Moreover when we wear a sari the top side border-most of it is tucked in and is not visible. Only one forth is visible. That is why some saris have only that much border on the topside where it is visible.

Any way you can see that the border is woven with silk threads.

You can see the chain stitch done by the Aari-known as Aari work. Aari is a needle like the one used by the shoemakers, for stitching the leather. It is known as Tambour work. This way its very easy to embroider chain stitch and fast too. The stitch is even. Here multi coloured silk floss has been used for the stitch.

Here you can see the most of the sari has applique work-tiny squares of dark blue coloured cotton ikkat fabric . You can see that the squares have been edged with tambour work of multi coloured floss.

Here is the close up of the appliqued square.

Here is the Pallu with the tambour work. You can see the green stripes woven on  the Pallu.

But here is the grand attraction. The huge piece appliqued on to the center of the Pallu. Note the center where the technique of "Reverse Applique" has been used.

Here is a closer look

Here you can see the tambour work on the rest of the Pallu.

So that was the applique work on cotton sari from Bengal. How do you like it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pieces and great blog. Do you have any reference material or book recommendations on tambour work? I would really like to learn how to do it. Thanks, Cheryl

Ms Sharma said...

Cheryl I don't know any as of now but will try to find out and let you know. Thanks a lot for appreciating my blog.