Soof

About

Soof is a beautiful, delicate needlework with geometrical designs that is used to make clothing, bedspreads, torans, and other items. Because soof stitching is lightweight, even extensively embroidered saris are simple to handle and wear. The Meghawaad Maaru community is originally from Tharparkar in Sindh, Pakistan and came to India as refugees during the 1971 war between India and Pakistan brought in the Soof art along with them. The needlework is filled with flower and foliage themes. Animal, bird, and figurative themes were rarely seen. The lone exception is the peacock pattern, which the craftswomen were especially fond of.

Soof means ‘neat and clean. It is a style of embroidery known for its intricate geometric patterns.This embroidery is done by the women of Sodha Community, with its own unique style.

The building blocks of the embroidery are lath, soof (triangles) and leher (wave).There is no outline or drawing done on the fabric to guide the artist.grid.The motifs are not drawn directly on the fabric, Instead, the design is mentally conceptualised and calculated according two the design, the cloth size and count and rendered onto it by counting the warp and weft threads of the fabric.

The embroidery is done on the opposite side of the cloth,patterns are created counting the warp and weft threads that are used as the base.When turned over, the front displays an embroidery that is so fine and precise that it is mistaken for machine embroidery.

Soof requires fabric that has a basket weave—the warp and weft have to be the same count. Patterns are created by counting the warp and weft threads that are used as the base grid. The embroidery is rendered on a horizontal and vertical grid. However, the most daring innovation was creating complex compositions on diagonal grids.