Collection: A counted thread embroidery

Our first visit to Soof cluster in Kutch was in Dec 2024. It was colder than usual time of the year. It was a 7-hour car journey from Ahmedabad. We reached there. Met the artisans. We started with sampling on a muslin cloth to get an idea of their skills, ability to work on motifs, their skills to contemporaries motifs or if they can carry forward the traditional ones. 

There was a group of girls, we happen to know their names by heart now; Charulata, Riti (Rita), Mamta, & Nirali. They were curiously looking at us or giggling at us, again looking and talking about us. We were curious to know what the reason behind those giggles is; They were giggling about how amazed we looked seeing all their work and understanding how they did what they did! It was SO GOOD!! So here we got to know that they all worked on three types of embroideries: Soof, Kharek, and Jaat.

Soof embroidery is also called counted thread embroidery. Where warp and weft are counted while stitching to form a particular shape. And out of those shapes motifs variations are made. These variations depend on the artisans how intricate they could make it or how they can contemporaries it. While working with the artisans we got to know that there needs to be a fabric that has a bit clearer gap between the warp and the weft or else it could be very difficult and strain to their eyes while working. Even if the weft is tighter than the warp the motif outcome could vary. The thing about Suf is it's done on the back side of the fabric to give the outcome on the right side. 

Kharek lies in the same category of counting threads. Where geometric patterns are formed using lines and are done on the right side of the fabric. Here the weave of the fabric doesn't matter as in Suf. 

Jaat is a different stitch but also one of the counted thread embroideries. It generally uses cross stitch for their motifs. It was traditionally used to embroider the yoke part of a blouse\kurta.

These stitches are done by the younger generations majorly because they have a better eyesight than the older ones. It becomes difficult to count the threads in the fabric after some age.