by Heather Luke | Jun 20, 2015
Also known as velour du Kasaï, a cloth made using a cut-pile technique of embroidery by the Kuba ethnic group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Women (traditionally, pregnant women) thread very fine raffia fibres through a woven raffia base cloth to create...
by Heather Luke | Jun 20, 2015
A fine, cotton-like fibre that grows in the seed pods of the Kapok tree, the Ceiba pentandra (also known as silk-cotton, or Java cotton), which grows in West Africa, Central Caribbean, Central and South America, China and the Far East. The fibre is light,...
by Heather Luke | Jun 20, 2015
I use them constantly and everywhere – in the garden especially, as bomb-proof sofa throws and bedhead covers. A traditional Indian running stitch that is used for a form of quilting; also the name of fabric worked in this way. Kanthas are...
by Heather Luke | Jun 20, 2015
A traditional Kashmiri hand weaving technique which has produced some of the very finest and most elaborate cashmere shawls, now mainly produced in the Srinagar locality, in Kanihama, Batpora, Kashmir. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte famously presented his wife Empress...
by Heather Luke | Jun 20, 2015
Kamdani is the lighter form of Zardosi embroidery, with flattened gold and silver thread and used on finer fabrics with less elaborate stitching. It is one of the most ancient of Indian embroidery techniques, venerated throughout Persia, China and Europe, and employed...
