Friday, December 18, 2009

Brooches

 Brooch is a piece of jewelery used to enhance the beauty of a plain or simple garment. It is usually used by pinning it on the dress. In India we use brooches pinned to our saris. I am so very fond of brooches and collect them when ever I can and wear them on special occasions.
Brooches are made of metals like gold, silver and gems. or other metals and semi precious stones. These days, multi-coloured ones and stone brooches are quite in thing. Younger generation may not much care for it when they wear modern attires. But when one wears saris it enhances the beauty especially if the saris are plain ones.
Any way here are some from my collection....
This is a bunch of purple flowers, made in Indonesia. Its gold plated. For the past six years I have been owning this and it still retains its shine and beauty.
 These are pink coloured stones. Reminds me of pomegranate seeds.
           Peacock Feather Brooch
  This is one of my favourites -shaped in peacock feather..blue stones a bit rare shade in blue...
 
Peacock Feather Brooch  
Now this is a smaller one when compared to the above but with emerald green stones...
 
                         Swan Brooch 
Now here comes my pink swan...I love it...pink and white coloured stones on white metal...
                     Dolphin Brooch 
This little one is a dolphin...I love dolphins great friendly creatures..any wonder I love to wear it?
                       Peacock Brooch
Here is a multi coloured peacock...The coloured work is known as Meenakari..that is inlay of enamel or art of decorating metal with enamel.

Photographing them was very difficult since, they were very shiny. But somehow I did it. That is why some of the pictures may not be crystal clear.

Hmm I do have some more but will share them some other time.....

Do leave your comments...

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?