Kasuti – The Folk Art

 

Indian Subcontinent homes many art forms like sculpture,  paintings and textile arts like embroidery and woven works and so on. The different forms of embroidery are  Kashmiri Kashida, Phulkari of Punjabi, Lucknowi Chikenkari, Kutch work, Kantha work, Kasuti work and Gota work and so on. Kasuti is the conventional form of hand embroidery practised in the rural areas of Karnataka and Maharashtra. 

Kasuti is done on traditional handwoven sarees like Ilkal, Dharwad sarees. Nowadays work is done on Kanchipuram and Mysore silk sarees too. Gradually this rural art is becoming a trend by appearing on Kurtis and tops.

Kasuti is done by counting threads of the fabric and generally, a single thread is used for embroidery.  Dark shades are best suited for the work. Gavanti, Murgi, Menthi are the name of the stitches of Kasuti. Some popular design patterns are chariots, Lamps, elephant, peacock etc are in geometrical shapes.