satrangi dhaage: 'Rabaris' The Black ones- The Project

The process that was to be followed to achieve Rabari's long lost embroidary samples was as follows:

At first we were very breifly introduced to Rabari embroidary through pictures and very few panels that Shrujan had.

Then we were shown 25 samples pieces that had been done by Rabari women recently which only included basic Rabari stiches and few motifs.

We had to study the given samples carefully and figure out all the stitches and motifs(eliminating the repeats) with there names and make a dictionary.

After figuring out 40 basic Rabari stitches and 15 motifs, our next task was to study the Rabari antiques that Shrujan acquired and find new motifs and stitches from them.

These new found motifs and stitches were to be recreated by Rabari women under our guidance.

To achieve that at first arenkhani was done on white muslin by the arenkhni artist of the tribe follwed by embroidary by the ladies who were best at it.

By now, we have not found no new stitches but 51 new motifs and 16 new borders, which are fully embroidered and done on white muslin in true Rabari colors.

Through this process Shrujan has accesebilty to Rabari embroidary skills and the process, which can be used in their products for layman to see and wear, thus retaining and supporting the tribe.