Tools and Techniques of Phulkari

Let me now tell you about the tools and technique of phulkari. Punjabi women made the traditional Phulkari of Punjab after completing their household work. They sat together in a group called “Trijan” where all women engaged in embroidery, as well as in dancing, laughing, gossiping and weaving. Traditional Phulkari was made of hand-dyed and hand-woven spun cloth called “khaddar” using high quality untwisted silk thread called “pat” with bright colors like red, green, golden, yellow, pink and blue. It was done with an ordinary needle in the darn stitch, without the help of any tracing, drawing, pattern or design. For embroidering a single Phulkari, an average of 50 to 100 gram of ‘Pat’ is needed and for Bagh 100 grams, to 150 grams are required. The silk thread came from Kashmir, Afghanistan and Bengal and dyed in Amritsar and Jammu. The best quality of silk thread came from China. Handling this kind of thread needed more expertise and experience. The cloth Khaddar could be of four colors white, red, black and blue. White was used by the mature women and widows, while red was for young married women. Black and blue colors were for daily use by women. A Phulkari takes anywhere from a month to a year to complete, and the special types of “Vari Da Bagh” took a year. The time it takes to make a Phulkari also depends upon the design, pattern, and the expertise of the embroiderer. For example, a “vari da bagh”, where the embroidery covers the entire surface of the cloth and the base is not visible, takes ten years to complete. It has a complicated design of golden colored silk thread. The Bagh and Phulkari are embroidered on an undyed fabric called a “Thirma” . The women of the eastern Punjab embroidered Phulkaris with patterns of human, animal, and plant forms, as well as other jewelry patterns. With this type of Phulkari, women trace the outline of the design with black ink, and then fill them with the darning stitch. The satin stitch, herringbone stitch, cross stitch, chain stitch, blanket stitch, backstitch, stem stitch, and running stitch were also used in phulkari embroidery.