Hand Embroidery - Yadgiri, Karnataka
To start with, the required size of the fabric is selected and cut according to the intended measurement. Once the cutting is done, stencil designs are often transferred onto the fabric with the help of carbon paper. Here the carbon paper is placed over the fabric keeping the carbon side down and then a tracing stencil paper carrying floral or any other intriguing designs are kept above them to trace out sketches with a pencil or pen. Once the designs are traced, the fabric is tightly set on a wooden hoop to hold the fabric firm. Now needle and colorful threads are put into use to start the stitching process. Here the thread can be of silk, cotton, linen, wool, gold, or silver. The artisan takes care that the embroidery stitch starts with a backstitch. Here the style of stitching differs as per the area taken to stitch at the moment, when chain stitch is used for borders, satin stitches are preferred for filling up the internal areas of the design. The chain stitch involves a process where a needle is firstly brought from the back of the fabric bringing it upwards, the needle is again put to the same hole and brought out upwards at some other point to make lengths of stitches. Here the artisan holds a portion of the thread at the back end, to make a dense mesh exclusive to embroidery work. These steps are repeated again and again to make chain loops. Once the border part is done, running stitch, satin stitch, and couching stem stitching are chosen to fill up other areas. These forms make long straight stitches placed close to each other to make visibly pleasing patterns.
