Rabari Skirt Border

This beautifully embroidered ghaghara border we found in a small Rabari village just north of Bhuj, Gujarat. It is a common practice to find other uses for the time-consuming embroidery when the rest of the garment has become unusable for one reason or another. In this case I do not know anything about the rest of the garment other than the fact of it being one of the heavy, gathered skirts that are generally reserved for brides. Whether this border was once embroidered onto a contiguous piece of cloth or sewn onto an existing garment, I do not know.

The ground fabric for the artful embroidery is black cotton and the embroidery threads are also cotton. Square and triangular mirrors abound in the motifs which are Kachhi Rabari designs.

At the top of the border are curving designs done in square chain stitch, called ambo, which is one type of mango tree motif. In the above picture some fading of the threads can be seen in the blue stitches on the left. The interior of the diamonds that make up the center of the ambo design are filled with a loose herringbone stitch.

Triangular mirrors form the bottom of the mango tree design. The stitching used to hold these mirrors in place on the fabric is very intricate with the stitches stretching out to the orange chain stitch in long lines at the bottom corners while being forced into tiny spaces along the lenth of the triangle borders. Below is a close-up of the small designs between each of the ambo. A diamond of small chain stitches above a very tightly woven example of interlaced stitching.Next comes a border of the popti (parrot-like) design. The yellow square chain stitches are contiguous lines that are embroidered over the tops of one another when they meet. An elongated chain stitch is used for the center fill.

In this shot of the back of the embroidery can be seen the jumbled maze created by the stitches on the inside fabric. It is easy to detect the different designs despite the messiness.Underneath the line of popti is a very intricate border, bavaliyo - thorny acacia, in between two lines of white square chain makoliyo borders. The bavaliyo is perhaps one of my favorite Rabari embroidery designs because I love the mixture of stitches. A square mirror, a line of herringbone stitching, an interlace stitch square, another line of herringbone stitching and so on, all encased in the ever-present square chain borders. In this example the mirror is sewn on by two different color threads which is intriguing. Did the embroiderer run out of the original color or just get bored with one color? Another popti line completes the border just above the bright red bias tape hem.

While the hem is machine sewn to the fabric on the front with a contrasting white thread, it is hand finished on the back with a bright green thread.

Judy Frater's book "Threads of Identity" was of invaluable help as reference for the stitches used, names and meanings of the embroidery motifs.