Phulkari

Phulkari is an art of decorating shawls, dupatas with embroidered floral motifs. The smaller the stitch, finer is the quality of the embroidery.The embroidery of phulkari and bagh is done in long and short darn stitch which are created into innumerable designs and patterns.The threads used were invariably of a silk yarn called pat. The silk threads in golden yellow, crimson, red, orange, green and pink are usually used for the embroidery.For the embroidery, only a single strand was used at a time, each part worked in one colour. Shading and variation were not done by using various colours of thread. Instead, the effect was obtained by the dexterous used of horizontal, vertical or diagonal stitches. This resulted in giving an illusion of more than one shade when light fell on it and when it was viewed from different angles.