Kutch Work and Satin Stitches : Two Astounding Salwars

It's been quite some time when I made my last entry. With so many changes going around in my life, I got busy all of a sudden. Recently, only in last week on this day, my hubby became ill and passed out in the morning, scaring the hell out of me. In a foreign country where I have not yet been a month, if such unexpected thing happens for which you are not prepared either mentally or financially, it puts a lot of pressure on your nerve. It was one nerve-wrecking moment for me when I saw Debu lying unconscious on the floor taken by a sudden seizure. It's only in USA that quick help arrives at a phone call and I am lucky that this thing happened here else if the same would have occured in India immediately after relocating to a new place away from my hometown, I don't know how I would have coped up.

 

For a long time, I have been thinking of entering a post on the recently finished embroidery projects but somehow could not make enough time. Just at the start of every year, I undertake several sewing and embroidery projects and along the way I get bored with the whole thing only to put them on the back burner for an indefinite period of time. As the news of Debu's onsite deployment came, I went into a mad rush to bring my unfinished and half-finished embroidery projects to a close for lots of raw materials bought at the cost of hefty amount of money would go to a waste otherwise.

This snapshot is of the one I stitched for my sister in law. The entire salwar kurta has been embroidered with kutch work or what is popularly known in Kolkata as "Gujrati stitch".

Well, embroidery is my passion, but upon shifting to Bangalore, once I got myself occupied with a hectic schedule, I hardly could manage any time to pursue my hobby. Corporate jobs are too demanding of your time. So just when the time came to pack things up again to relocate to a new place, my sense suddenly reminded me of the unpleasant experience during out last relocation when I lost quite a valuable important items. I didn't want the same to be repeated again and so was the rush to finish the ones which are in half-finished state.

That way during our trip to Kolkata prior to flying to USA, I could have some salwars stitched for myself and some to be gifted away to my relatives. However, despite my painstaking effort, only three embroidery projects were done and dusted with on time. One is the salwar where I did kutch work and presented to my sister in law. Another is a bed cover done with the rare palestrian knot stitches and gifted to my mother. Unfortunately, my hubby forgot to capture the pics of the bedcover so can't upload them till we visit Kolkata again. Last one is a salwaar kurti for myself. I have used very fine satin stitches along with sequins to add an extra resplendence.


The photo above and the ones below are of the salwar kurti I embroidered for myself with delicate satin stitches, fishbones and seed stitches accentuated further by a line of sequins. It has been tailored into a salwaar now paired with a baby pink pant and baby pink dupatta. I am looking for an occasion to wear it. I promise to upload some pics of mine wearing it.

 While working on the motif, I was planning to gift it to someone when completed, but greedy me, I fell in love with the turnout. Hence, I kept it for myself :D

Now, some more projects are underway, one of them is a silk saree. My sister in law gifted the saree to me on my wedding registry. The saree is beautiful, but with a thought to add some more blings, I am doing mirror work on it. Just can't wait to finish it, but 12 yards of saree is not dead easy.