Silk Kurta with hand embroidery motifs

It all started when my best friend gifted me that soft tie and dye chunni. I had a few meters of off-white pure silk material. When I rummaged in my left over-fabric carry bags (any given time, I have atleast two bags full), I found this brocade Benaras silk piece in shades of green and blue. It was less than half a meter and in odd shape. I put them all together and felt they will look good, and here is my semi-formal silk kurta with chunni!

Silk kurta with hand embroidery motifs

Materials used:

Blue / green yoke – less than half meter

Embroidery Silk threads – blue & green, part of spool each

Gold beads – 5 per motif

Gold bead lace – 1.25 m.

I used the green / blue silk for the yoke and as a band on the short sleeve. First I finished stitching the kurta. 

Green / Blue brocade silk yoke and band on sleeves

It had been a while since I did any embroidery work and my fingers were itching for some hand embroidery. To make it a well-put-together dress, I picked the colours from the chunni and made a small motif; traced it on the dress with a carbon paper. The coloured threads were also old and left over from a previous project. The small gold beads were also from before.

Embroidery motifs traced with carbon paper

I used stem stitch and satin stitch. Each motif took precisely 20 min. to stitch / embroider.

I still needed a trim to get a finished look. The thin lace edging with gold beads seemed perfect. Finally, the lace is tacked on to the edge of the sleeve and the yoke.

Detail of one Embroidery motif