Edit No. 01 · Lucknow

The Lucknow Edit

Chikankari — shadow work in white thread

6 pieces · The craft behind the Edit

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Three hundred years of Chikan

Chikankari arrived in Lucknow under the Mughals and stayed, absorbed into the city until the two became inseparable. It is shadow work: the pattern is stitched on the reverse of the cloth, so what you see from the front is not thread but the ghost of it — a motif surfacing through fine cotton like breath on glass.

The cloth is held taut — in a small frame or simply in the hand — so every stitch lands with the same tension. An embroiderer works it for hours, and a single kurta can pass through four or five pairs of hands: one to block the pattern, one for the shadow work, one for the knots, one to open the jali, one to wash the printed guidelines away.

Nothing about it is fast. That is not a flaw in the process. It is the process.

— The Lucknow Edit

The Stitches

Thirty-two ways to tell a story

Six of them carry most of the work. Open any card to see how it is made, and how long it takes.

BakhiyaShadow work — the stitch that gives Chikankari its name in the West.

Worked entirely on the reverse. Herringbone stitches fill the motif from behind, so the density of thread shows through the cloth as a soft, shifting shade rather than a hard line. Hold it to the light and the pattern almost disappears.

Hours per motif
6–9
Difficulty
Advanced
PhandaA knot no wider than a millet grain.

Used for the centres of flowers and the eyes of birds. The knot must be tight enough to hold its shape and small enough to disappear into the motif — the two demands pull against each other, which is why phanda is the stitch by which an embroiderer is judged.

Hours per motif
4–6
Difficulty
Advanced
MurriThe rice stitch — an elongated knot that catches the light.

A phanda drawn out into a grain of rice. Worked in rows, murri gives a raised, textured surface that reads as embroidery even at a distance. The hardest of the family to work evenly, because every grain must lie at the same angle.

Hours per motif
7–10
Difficulty
Master
JaliNet work, made without ever cutting the cloth.

The warp and weft threads are teased apart with the needle and held open with tiny stitches, producing a lattice. Nothing is removed. Run a finger across it and the fabric is still continuous — which is the difference between jali and cutwork, and the reason it survives washing.

Hours per motif
8–14
Difficulty
Master
TaipchiThe running stitch. The first one learned, and the last mastered.

A simple line of evenly spaced stitches following the printed pattern. It is where every apprentice begins, and it is also what holds the more elaborate work together. On the plainest pieces, taipchi alone carries the whole design.

Hours per motif
2–4
Difficulty
Foundation
HoolAn eyelet, pierced rather than cut.

The needle separates the threads to open a small round hole, which is then bound with satin stitch. Usually the centre of a flower, with petals worked around it in bakhiya. Six hools in a ring is one of the oldest motifs in the vocabulary.

Hours per motif
3–5
Difficulty
Intermediate

And twenty-six more

  • Ghas Patti
  • Pechni
  • Bijli
  • Kaj
  • Kaudi
  • Hathkadi
  • Banarsi
  • Kapkapi
  • Karan
  • Keel Kangan
  • Bulbul Chashm
  • Sidhaul
  • Ghaspatti
  • Makra
  • Mandarzi
  • Bhath
  • Janjeera
  • Dhania Patti
  • Rozan
  • Meharki
  • Chanapatti
  • Balda
  • Jora
  • Pashni
  • Panna Hazara
  • Katao

Meet the Maker

Salma Begum

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

She learned bakhiya at eleven, sitting beside her grandmother, and has worked it every day since. Thirty-four years at the frame. She can tell which of her apprentices worked a piece by the tension of the knots alone.

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