Bunka

My daughter and I went to a craft shop in Atlanta(US) and were in the embroidery section to see what was new.My daughter saw a punch needle and asked me if I knew anything about it.Since I already have a couple of needles with me, I told her about the project I had tried recently.She wanted to try  and so we ended up buying the punch needle set.
Reaching home, I showed her how to do it. The outcome looked and felt like a turkey towel finish.
We really got fired up and looked up on the net for some assistance or some tutorial on doing this.
Thats when we found out about Japanese Punch Embroidery also known as Bunka. The tutorial that I watched was so good that I wanted to try it on my own. Before that I knew I had to do more research. My daughter and I spent several hours (no exaggeration at all) on the internet and found couple of good links and got a slight idea about how this worked.
See the video and pictures below to understand this.

Bunka requires a special unravelling thread and done on a thick (slightly ealstic) fabric to work with. It is a form of needle painting and it literally looks and feels like it. It also resembles long and short stitches.

What you are seeing is our maiden attempt, not perfect though, but definitely satisfying.

My daughter and I are now in love with this Bunka embroidery and for a change my daughter is actually enjoying doing something with threads and needles.

Peacock feather

This is my latest work.This has been my long time dream come true. I either wanted to do fabric paining or do it by hand embroidery. I took the feather to buy the nearest shade of thread possible and I think I succeeded. For the center I did chain stitch filling and somewhat dint like it and for the other filling I used blanket stitch.The rest is whipped chain and WOW!The end result was very satisfying. As soon as I finished I e- mailed it to Deepa and she posted it in her blog deepshome.blogspot.com as I was not having a blog at  that time. Now I am posting this in my blog also. Again thank you Deepa for publishing the same

Single Color Embroidery

This one I had in my mind for a quite some time. I wanted to do a embroidery like pencil sketching and then embellish with sequins or beads,but not yet decided about that. This is a salwar top and the colour of the bottom is the colour of the embroidery thread. I am planning to do the same work in the bottom also with blue colour.

This is a simple work which I finished in two days.I used the design in the material to do the running stitch to create a border.I did petal stitch with kundan in the center.A lovely piece which I really like.And this was the first dress I made for my DIL.She liked it also.

I did this on a salwar top.In between the two rows of sequins I used the decorative stitch from my machine with a lining at the back to make it a little stiff.

In this I did a row of chain,sequins, stem stitch and chevron stitch,In the body part with lazy daisy and finished it with a sequin.It was really simple embroidery and was very easy.

Sequin work

This one I did it with four shades of orange and white.I did this as it came to my mind. Just the circles are running stitch and sequins in between and the center with buttonhole stitch

Bead work

This a bead work I did for my daughter.Just before this I bought a Golusu(Payal)and that had this kind of dangling and that was an inspiration for me to try this.Isn't good looking?:)

This is maternity top with petal stitch with chain stitch out line and the smaller ones in the body is also chain stitch,The basic cloth is black and red checks cotton material.

My Inspiration

One day while I was trying to get some idea of "petal stitch". I bumped into an interesting site of Mrs Deepa, which was both simple and inspiring. Till then I had little idea that one can show- case their skills through this powerful medium. I repented for not documenting my creations over the last two decades.

While visiting the US to assist my daughter for the delivery of her second child, I was casually mentioning to her about the site. It was then, that my daughter encouraged me to start compiling the photos of my earlier creations. This is the story of the birth of this site. I must thank Mrs Deepa for this.

Embroidery on Batik design

This was an inspiration from a ready made shop which

had only running stitch around the designs and was heavily

priced.So I thought why not we do with more type of

stitches.I did mirror work for the single circles in the design

and running stitch with stem stitch for the bigger design.

It was very laborious to do the whole front,but the end

result was satisfactory.

This cloth had a very vague design on it.I just worked

chain stitch around it .And HURRAY!It came out like a swan....

And for the neck and hand, I stitched long running stitch and

just passed the anchor thread through it .Nothing to boast about

but a simple work instead of a plain top.

Applique work

This is an applique I did 3 years ago I worked a stem stitch

for the stem part and all the other parts are applique.

I worked blanket stitch for the outer side.I hope you all liked it:)