> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: Garland Magazine > Reference:: https://garlandmag.com/article/embroidery-without-borders/ > Date:: 2025 > Tags:: #warp/article #Afghanistan #India #embroidery > WeftLinks:: [[Migrant and refugee value of craft]] > Claim:: [[Claim - Craft provides a livelihood with dignity through market access]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > Aditi Sabbarwal reports on ten days in New Delhi where Afghan refugee artisans and Kutch embroiderers exchanged stitches, found a shared language, and built the foundations of a working livelihood model. ### Highlights Afghan refugee artisans and Kutch embroiderers met in New Delhi to share embroidery skills and create new designs together. They built a model where Afghan artisans work from home while Kutch women handle finishing and sales, helping both communities earn a living. This exchange created friendship, respect, and a lasting way to connect through craft across cultures. > In Embroidery Without Borders, a ten-day cultural and design exchange facilitated by the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design (IICD) in collaboration with UNHCR India, five Afghan refugee artisans and five Kutch embroiderers gathered around long tables covered with khadi swatches, colourful threads, wooden frames, and sketchbooks. > Techniques like pukhtadozi (satin-based floral filling), khamakdozi (precisely counted geometry), jaridozi (a mesh crocheted by lifting warp threads), moridozi (pearl adornment), and chobakdozi (twig-like branching) are not just styles. They're memories for survival. They're quiet, faithful acts of continuity. > Afghan artisans demonstrated jaridozi, an architecture of air: the warp parted to reveal small windows, a crochet needle looping thread into lattices of light. In return, Kutch artisans guided the reverse logic of soof, where pattern emerges from the underside like a secret, and the measured cadence of rabari borders that hold a surface in balance.