Arts and Crafts Collection

This is a saree a designed with net material and running Orange synthetic material.As net material is very thin , I attached the net as border and Pallu on the saree.

The blouse is also same net material:

In previous post I had mentioned to share about the Kalamkari patch work made on a saree.
Kalamkari is technique of painting on cloth with vegetable dyes. You can find out more about Kalamkari Paintings in this link.
Now these Kalamkari patches are used for dress design and saree design. I had bought some Kalamkari patches , in a Craft exhibition. It was in my stash for long time. Then bought a saree to attach the Patches. It took more than 6 months for me to complete the work.
There is a big Paisley design Patch and 18 small patches. I attached the small patches on the border :

    
I have not used any embellishment on this. Because I wanted to highlight the Kalamkari painting.
Blouse is also Kalamkari cloth in Maroon color.

This is the best cross stitch work I have seen. No, I have not made this. To make this kind of piece, will take at least 10 years for me. :-). My mother made this. Few years back, she had been to Chandigarh, to stay few months with my sister. She got this design from neighbor and started this work. She worked at least 2-3 years on this. This is really a large design, measuring 1 meter X 3/4 meter.
She gifted this to her sister (my aunt).
This is a complete cross stitch work, means even the red background is filled with cross stitch. So you can imagine the amount of work involved.
I had seen her working on this. Though she used to have , household work, she never got bored of this work. After finishing her household work, she was to open the materials  and start working. Whenever she used to travel, she was to carry this with her :-). I always used to tease her saying she would never finish this work. :-). Hundreds of Anchor embroidery skeins are used for this. Once she fell short of the red skeins and  asked  me to send some skeins. I forgot the number of the color and I thought its red so, sent some red color skeins. She filled some part of the design with the skeins I sent. After some filling was done, she realized that was not the exact color. The difference was negligible. But she removed all those, and again filled with the exact color skein. Perfection! She always used to tell us, "If you start any work, do it properly and complete it, never leave it unfinished". And also "If you are giving food to anybody, take care that the person's hunger is satiated, otherwise don't give".

One more view of the cross stitch work:




She is making one more like this to give to my brother. Hats off, to her enthusiasm. I always think my passion towards arts and craft is inherited from her. Isn't it?