Soof Embroidery

 

Soof which Literally means ‘neat and clean’. Sometimes It is also known as ‘Sodha Barat’ or ‘Sindhi embroidery’. The embroidery is often mistaken for machine work because it is so neat and perfectly arranged.

In olden time this embroidery was done convey wishes of Fertility and Prosperity for the Newlyweds.

The unique characteristic of this embroidery is craftswomen never draws outline or drawing on fabric to guide them. But the design is mentally conceptualized and plotted by counting threads on the fabric. So here the craftsman/craftswoman is the one who is designer and embroider both. This style of embroidery is worked by carefully counting the warp and weft threads and not over a drawn pattern which means artisan must have keen eyesight, mathematics, and geometry knowledge to do detail work of this beautiful embroidery. They mentally picture the motifs and then work the embroidery from the reverse of the fabric. Once done and turned over fabric the front it displays very fine and neat embroidery. It is very hard to believe that such perfection can be achieved by hand and thus so many times it has been mistaken for machine work. One more characteristic of Soof embroidery sits so lightly on fabric that even heavily embroidered fabric also feels very light weight.