Hand Stitching Indian Style

I heard all about Dijanne Cevaal's travels to India. I am particularly interested because my husband has been working in Bangalore for the last month and I plan to join him during his contract there and perhaps travel to different areas when he is occupied with meetings and such.

One of the things she did during her residency in Pushkar was to help find use for small pieces of fabric discarded from making clothing.

She designed a patchwork-type purse using pieces of hand-spun, indigo-dyed fabric.

She hand-stitched each small geometric-shaped piece of fabric using stitching inspired by the techniques the local women use.

Aperitivo with Dijanne!

The stitching is called  Sujuni. It is different from the Kantha stitch in that there is a chain stitch used to outline figures and shapes and the straight-line running stitch is used as a filler. To read more about these two forms of Indian traditional embroidery, click here.