Zalakdozi

 

Embroidery sample: Zalakdozi

Zalakdozi is also known as
(popularly) Kashmiri, Aari work


About
‘Zalakdozi’, essentially means chain stitch. This type of embroidery includes only the Chain stitch. Zalakdozi is known to be an exclusive embroidery from the state of Kashmir in India, and thus popularly known as ‘Kashmiri’. It is to be noted that Kashmir has other types of embroideries using other stitches like the satin stitch too. Zalakdozi typically uses wool, cotton, or silk thread. It is done not using a needle, but a hook known as ‘ari’. Using a hook to do this embroidery saves on time and energy as the hook is used to pull a series of loops of the chain stitch, as against the single loops that have to be done using a needle. Yet, we can go through the pain of using a needle to replicate this work using a needle, all for the worth of its richness and beauty. One interesting thing to know is that all Kashmiri embroidery artisans are men.

The main feature of Zalakdozi is the use of the Chain stitch in concentric rings to fill a pattern. How to color this filling is left up to the artisan.


History
There have been many claims on how this type of hook-ware embroidery originated. There is a belief that it originated along with crochet ( a french craft), where hooks called the ‘tambour’ hooks were used to create the Chain stitch. Some believe that the inspiration is drawn from a shoemaker’s hook. Yet, another belief is that this art is as old as 700 years. In the 13th century, the Italian traveler, Marco Polo describes patterns similar to that of Kashmiri used centuries earlier. But, material facts put it that it originated in the 16th century. One fact known is that in the 16th century, it was deeply encouraged by the Mughal emperors and this helped many artisans to thrive. One study states that this type of embroidery was introduced in Kashmir from Damascus.

Zalakdozi today
This embroidery carries an international market and is known as one of the finest and expensive works of art. Due to market demands, this stitch can be found on almost all kinds of furnishing fabrics and many kinds of dresses. Market demand has also prompted the use of machines to produce this embroidery to be sold at a more affordable price. However, the exquisiteness and richness of a hand produced Kashmiri embroidery can never be replaced by the perfectness and flawlessness of machines. Many artisans of Kashmir earn their livelihood using Zalakdozi.


Patterns used
Traditionally floral and leaf patterns were used. The designs varied from Persian to the west to the most popular mango seed design of India. But, market demands have created a way for more contemporary patterns that involve animals too.

Stitches used
Zalakdozi uses only the chain stitch. The use of lazy daisy and zigzag chain stitch happens occasionally.


Next, go to the Zalakdozi Tutorial:


Learn other traditional embroideries from around the world. Make something beautiful today.❤️

Kamal Kadai

Pattern Darning

Redwork

Kasuti

Chicken Scratch

Sashiko

26 Responses

  1. M
    Monica Inostroza says:

    me gusto mucho

  2. Maureen says:

    Your post is enticing to read. I feel the need to take time to read it properly and then try to learn how to work some on cloth. Thank you for sharing the project.

  3. n
    naushin says:

    Hi Sarah
    I m not able to subscribe at you blog.
    Please help

  4. M
    Mahjabeen Baloch says:

    Hi Sarah,

    you and your work is great. I have learnt many designs from your website. can you please teach me how to make mukesh embroidery on cloths. I love mukesh work but could get any tutorial from any website 🙁

  5. a
    anu says:

    can you please post a few more designs of ‘ari’ work for neck patterns?

    anu(India)

  6. S
    Shamima Bint Razzaq Nancy says:

    hi sara, I am a fan of your website….i wanna know about kutch embroidery..thanx for everything…bye

  7. K
    Karen Johnson says:

    Thank you for your beautiful website. I do wish I could attend one of your workshops but I live in Sacramento, California, USA. I’ve not embroidered in a number of years and needed a refresher course and found your site. Thank you again

  8. c
    caroline says:

    Hello Sarah,
    I was so glad to find your website. Your works are so wonderful. I am now so interested in learning zalakdozi works and wonder if you would recommend me a website where I can by an Aari tools. I live in California and hasn’t been successful in finding that tool here. Thank you for your help.

  9. S
    Soumya says:

    hey… i think you can ignore my last comment.. i found a way to ‘pin’ your page by doing some set up in my IE… here is the page…

    http://pinterest.com/pin/544942470/

    hope you dont mind me sharing this page…

    Regards,
    Soumya

    • sarah says:

      Dear Soumya,
      Sorry for being late to response. Thanks for making efforts to pin this page. 🙂
      For some reason I am not able to view the link you shared, but I will check into it.

  10. S
    Soumya says:

    hi sarah,

    I was trying to share this page of your through this social webpage called ‘pinterest’.

    since the ‘pin it’ option is not installed in your webpage, I was not able to pin your page…as one of my favoutites in their webpage..

    could you go through the link below and consider adding pinterest to your list?
    http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/

    i couldnt pin it otherwise as the images in your page are too small for them to pick up..hope this helps you…
    Regards,
    Soumya

  11. j
    jayahari says:

    hey you are great and wonderful i learn all the stitches here i have a doubt how did i know if you up date new stitches

    • sarah says:

      Dear Jayahari,
      Thanks for showign interest. 🙂
      If you want to be notified about the new posts that will be done here, you can subscribe it, which is free of cost. Check the top most part of the right hand panel of the embrodiery page. You will find an option ‘subscribe to hand embroidery tutorials’. Now, in the page that shows up next, you can click on ‘subscribe to this feed on google reader’. Just follow the remaining instructions and you will be notified of all the new posts made by me. 🙂 Hope this helps.

  12. R
    Rachna Singh says:

    Dear Sarah

    Its my pleasure to find your web page, I am an Assistant professor at Indian Institute of crafts & Design, Jaipur. We are working on “Design Bank”, of Indian needle craft, your website been quite helpful for us to find information about Kashmir embroidery, I am very curious to know that if you have information of other states like Gujarat & Rajasthan, do let know the possibility.

    Regards
    Rachna

    • sarah says:

      Dear Rachna,
      It is a honor to receive an appreciative comment from a person like you. Thank you. 🙂
      Sorry for being late to respond as I had been having some trouble with internet for a long time.

      I do have some information on Gujarat and Rajasthan embroidery, but is still to be sorted and published along with the tutorials.

      Just, since I am interested to know, what is ‘Design Bank’ going to contain? Is it a book, or some other source of reference? Is it possible that I can refer it in future for any information?

  13. y
    yumeng says:

    Hey Sarah,
    Nice to meet you!
    Your desigh is very beautiful!I am so sorry my english is very poor.I can not express my love of your wok.
    Thank you very much!

  14. Hi Sarah,,,hope u r in good health,well i want to learn popularly(Kashmiri) stitch.please advice me how to do that.

    Thanks

  15. A
    Anubha Bhattacharya says:

    This is beautiful,i well lean this very soon.

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