Rich source chronicles evolution of distinctive Native American craft, exploring origins, history, graphic content, and techniques.

Introduces Indian embroidery stitches and techniques, and shows examples of quilting, pattern-darning, counted-thread work, whitework, mirror work, metal work, applique, and patchwork

Illustrations show the richness and variety of Indian textile traditions and reveal patterns and colours that have both influenced and been influenced by Western design, from the 16th century when the earliest surviving pieces here were sent to Europe, right up to the late 1990s.

This book gives us an understanding of the Indian embroidery from the Mughal period till today highlighting its importance and relevance through every era.

Focusing on over 20 textiles from the British Museum's collection, this book explores the wonderful folk embroidery of India and Pakistan - in particular the domestic work made by women for their own dowry or family. Illustrated in full and in detail, these richly decorated items - costumes and household textiles -should provide designers at all levels with inspiration for new and unexpected ways for using colour and pattern in their own work.

One can use this book in many ways. Just browse through it for sheer reading pleasure or to satisfy curiosity of, in how many different ways certain embroideries are done in other states of India. For example how blanket stitches or chain stitches are made in different regions along with other combinations of stitches. How differently from region to region a mirror is fixed on the material. One can also use this book as a help in deciding which embroidery style one would like to begin work, either to buy the embroidered goods or get the type of work done. Read through it or dip first into one chapter, then into another, and find out exactly what is involved in the motifs you think might interest you. Thus, appreciation of the efforts involved, automatically comes with knowledge and getting to know intimately the details of work creates aspirations for making such charming embroidered cloths. Kashmir to Kanyakumari contains more than 150 pages and has more than 150 photographs and illustrations detailing just about everything there is to know about Indian embroidery. To fully understand a particular motif, read through the technical details of related stitches listed in a sequel book in a separate chapter on stitches. Best of all, this book will introduce you to the talent you never realized you had. It may bring you face to face to that beautiful instinct of your own creative capabilities and urge.

This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent from the medieval period through to the present. It offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination of the material, technical, artistic and design dimensions of the subject, including its use by today's fashion designers. For millennia, the peoples of Central Asian, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent have migrated and traded along the multiple strands of the Silk Road, both north–south and east–west. This history of contact has found rich expression within the arts and crafts of the region and particularly in the heritage of embroidery which has sat at the heart of the social and cultural lives of these diverse communities. Embroidery has been produced to decorate individuals, their families, their clients, their homes and public spaces and has reflected economic and political changes over time as well as social, religious and artistic contexts. Generously illustrated with 500 images (350 in colour) of clothes, accessories, and examples of decorated soft furnishings such as cushions, bed linen, curtains, floor coverings and wall hangings, the Encyclopedia is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject.