Three techniques do most of the work on our rail: hand embroidery on plackets and collars, cutwork on shirts and dresses, and hand block print on kaftans. All three have machine imitations that are cheaper and often sold under the same names. This guide tells you what each technique is, where it came from, how to tell the hand version from the machine one, roughly what the difference should cost, and how to care for the piece afterwards.
We use both hand and machine work and say which is which on every product page. The point of the guide is not that machine work is bad; it is that you should know what you are paying for.
- Hand embroidery shows on the back: knots, thread ends and slight unevenness. Machine embroidery has a uniform, dense back with bobbin thread showing. Price it accordingly: hand work is paid by the hour.
- Schiffli is a machine, invented by Isaak Gröbli in 1863 and named for its boat-shaped shuttle. Most "schiffli cutwork" cloth sold in India is machine embroidered and then cut; hand cutwork is a different, slower thing.
- Chikankari, Lucknow's white-on-white hand embroidery, holds a Geographical Indication registered in 2008. Its shadow-work stitch, bakhiya, is worked from the back so the shadow shows through fine cloth.
- Hand block printing from Sanganer and Bagru, outside Jaipur, holds GI tags too (sources give 2009 or 2010 for Sanganeri and 2011 for Bagru). Hand print shows in slightly misaligned repeats and colour pooling at block edges.
- Care follows the technique: embroidery and cutwork in a mesh bag, dried flat, ironed inside out; block print washed separately for the first washes, in cold water, away from sun.
Hand embroidery: what it is and how to tell
Hand embroidery is thread worked through cloth with a needle held in a hand. On our rail it is the green sprig down a kora placket, the cherries on a gingham pocket, the maroon and olive trail on a candy stripe, the beading on a kaftan bib. India's embroidery traditions run from Gujarat's chain stitch, fine enough to be sought by the Mughal court, to zardozi in metal thread and phulkari worked in darning stitch from the back of hand-woven cotton. Each region has a vocabulary; chikankari alone is usually counted at 32 to 36 stitches.
How to tell it from machine work: turn the piece over. Hand work leaves knots, thread ends and small irregularities in stitch length; the front has a slight depth where the thread sits above the cloth. Machine embroidery has a dense, uniform back with a second, finer bobbin thread visible, and the front is flat and perfectly regular. Neither is wrong. Hand work costs more because an embroiderer is paid for the hours, and a placket can take a day.
Schiffli and cutwork: the machine and the hand
Schiffli is a machine. Isaak Gröbli invented it in 1863; it is a multi-needle industrial embroidery machine that takes its name from the boat-shaped shuttle (Schiffli in Swiss German) carrying the bobbin thread, and its production centred on eastern Switzerland and Saxony before spreading. In India the word has come to mean the white eyelet cloth the machine produces: embroidered, then cut, giving the open floral holes you see on our cutwork shirt and dress.
Cutwork itself is older and wider than the machine. It is an eyelet technique in which sections of cloth are cut away in planned shapes and the edges bound and decorated with embroidery stitches; in India it appears in chikankari and in hakoba, where white thread is worked around small eyelets. Hand cutwork is slow, because every hole has to be bound before it is cut, and is priced like hand embroidery. Machine schiffli cloth is bought by the metre.
How to tell: machine schiffli has perfectly repeated motifs across the whole width of the cloth and a very regular satin edge on each hole. Hand cutwork has motifs that vary slightly, edges with visible buttonhole stitching, and usually appears on part of a garment rather than all of it. We use schiffli cloth and say so.
Chikankari and the GI tag
Chikankari is the white-on-white hand embroidery of Lucknow, usually on fine muslin or mul so that the play of light through the cloth is part of the design. Its origin is debated; a popular tradition credits Nur Jahan with making it fashionable in the early seventeenth century, and it flourished under Mughal patronage before surviving in Lucknow's artisan households after that patronage ended. The Geographical Indication Registry recognised Lucknow as the exclusive hub of the craft in December 2008, and the National Crafts Museum holds reference pieces.
The stitch to know is bakhiya, the shadow work: herringbone worked on the wrong side of the cloth so that a soft shadow of the shape shows through on the right side. If a "chikankari" piece is cheap, dense and flat, it is probably machine embroidery copying the look. Real chikan is light, slightly irregular and translucent.
Hand block printing: Sanganer, Bagru and how to read a print
Hand block printing is a carved wooden block, inked, pressed by hand onto cloth, one repeat at a time. The two towns that define it in India sit outside Jaipur. Sanganer printing is traced to printers who migrated from Gujarat toward the end of the seventeenth century and is known for fine floral work on a light ground; Sanganeri hand block printing is listed under the government's One District One Product scheme and holds a GI tag (sources give 2009 or 2010; the GI Registry is the authority). Bagru print, practised by the Chhipa community, uses natural dyes and resist on a darker ground, and holds a GI tag registered in 2011, with a later recognition reported in 2024.
How to tell hand print from screen or digital print: look along a row of repeats. Hand-printed repeats do not line up perfectly, and the colour pools very slightly at the edges of each block where the ink was pressed. Screen print is uniform; digital print has no texture at all and often prints over seams. Our indigo buta and floral buta pieces are hand block printed cloth; a 2025 academic study of the Jaipur printing towns found that artisans had not been using their GI status for marketing, which is one reason the hand version is still underpriced relative to its labour.
What the techniques should cost
Rough bands for 2026, from published label prices and our own costing. A plain kora or linen shirt from a studio label: ₹3,000 to ₹5,000. The same shirt with a hand-embroidered placket: add ₹1,000 to ₹3,000 depending on the hours. Machine schiffli cloth adds little to the cloth cost but the cutting and finishing are slower, so a cutwork shirt sits a band above plain. Hand cutwork across a whole garment: priced like heavy embroidery, often double the plain piece. Hand block printed cloth adds ₹300 to ₹800 a metre over plain mill cotton, so a block-printed kaftan sits ₹1,000 to ₹2,000 above the plain version.
Care, technique by technique
Hand embroidery: cold hand wash, iron inside out so the thread is not flattened, never wring. Cutwork and schiffli: wash in a mesh bag so the holes do not catch, do not wring, dry flat, cool iron or steam. Block print: wash separately in cold water for the first two or three washes, as natural dyes can shed; line dry in shade, since sun fades the print; iron on the reverse. For all three, no bleach.
Every piece on the rail carries its own care note, and every product page says whether the surface work is by hand or by machine.
Hand or machine? The tells, side by side
| Technique | Hand version shows | Machine version shows | Price effect of hand work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Embroidery | Knots and thread ends on the back, slight unevenness, depth on the front | Dense uniform back with bobbin thread, flat regular front | ₹1,000 to ₹3,000 on a shirt placket; more for allover |
| Cutwork | Varying motifs, visible buttonhole edges, usually on part of the piece | Perfect repeats across the whole cloth width, regular satin edges (schiffli) | Often double the plain piece for allover hand cutwork |
| Block print | Repeats slightly misaligned, colour pooling at block edges, texture | Perfect alignment (screen), no texture, prints over seams (digital) | ₹300 to ₹800 a metre over plain cloth |
Questions people ask
How can you tell hand embroidery from machine embroidery?
Turn the piece over. Hand embroidery leaves knots, thread ends and small irregularities, and the front has depth. Machine embroidery has a dense, uniform back with a finer bobbin thread showing and a flat, perfectly regular front.
What is schiffli embroidery?
Machine embroidery made on the schiffli machine, invented by Isaak Gröbli in 1863 and named for its boat-shaped shuttle. In India the word usually means the white eyelet cloth the machine produces, embroidered and then cut. It is bought by the metre and is not hand work.
What is the difference between chikankari and cutwork?
Chikankari is Lucknow's white-on-white hand embroidery, GI registered in 2008, with stitches such as bakhiya shadow work. Cutwork is any technique where cloth is cut away and the edges bound with embroidery; chikankari includes some cutwork, and machine schiffli cloth imitates the look.
Which block prints have GI tags in India?
Sanganeri hand block printing and Bagru hand block printing, both from towns outside Jaipur, hold Geographical Indication tags. Sources give 2009 or 2010 for Sanganeri and 2011 for Bagru, with a later recognition reported in 2024; the GI Registry is the authority.
How do you wash hand-embroidered clothes?
Cold hand wash with mild detergent, no bleach, never wring. Iron inside out so the thread is not flattened. Cutwork goes in a mesh bag and is dried flat. Block prints are washed separately for the first few washes and dried in shade.
Related guides
Sources
- Wikipedia, Schiffli embroidery machine (Isaak Gröbli, 1863; shuttle name; production centres): en.wikipedia.org
- Textile Research Centre Leiden, Schiffli embroidery machine: trc-leiden.nl
- Wikipedia, Cutwork (definition; chikankari and hakoba in India): en.wikipedia.org
- Victoria and Albert Museum, Indian embroidery (Gujarat chain stitch, zardozi, phulkari): vam.ac.uk
- National Crafts Museum, Sample piece of chikan work (GI 2008 reference): nationalcraftsmuseum.nic.in
- Wikipedia, Chikan (embroidery) (origins, GI December 2008, stitch count, bakhiya): en.wikipedia.org
- AIACA Craft Katha, Chikankari embroidery: aiacaonline.org
- India.gov.in, One District One Product: Sanganeri hand block printing: india.gov.in
- Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Sanganeri hand block printing: handicrafts.gov.in
- Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Bagru hand block print: handicrafts.nic.in
- NABARD, GI product details: Bagru hand block print (2011): nabard.org
- Wikipedia, Bagru print (Chhipa community; 2024 recognition): en.wikipedia.org
- IIS Journal of Arts, 2025 study of GI use by Jaipur block printing artisans: iisjoa.org