Swati Shahtoosh Shawl — Black with Large Corner Paisley, Hand Embroidered

A Swati Shahtoosh shawl in deep black, left plain across the whole field and framed on all four sides by a fine hand-embroidered border in saffron, coral, gold and pale blue — with a large paisley buta worked into each corner, filled with flowering vine and shaded in five colours.

Block-printed, then embroidered by hand

The design does not go straight onto the cloth. It is first printed on with carved wooden blocks — an outline in washable ink that maps every vine, leaf and petal the embroiderer will follow. The blocks themselves are cut by a separate craftsman and a workshop may use the same set for decades.

The embroiderer then works the whole design by hand over that printed line. The ink washes out at the end, leaving only thread. It is worth understanding what this does and does not mean: the block guarantees the placement is even and the borders match corner to corner, but every stitch, every colour change and all the shading is still done by hand, one needle at a time. A printed shawl would be finished at the printing stage. This one is where the work begins.

The corner buta

This is the fuller of our two black Swati Shahtoosh pieces. The border line is the same, but the corner paisley is several times larger — a proper buta with a curled tip, a flowering interior and graded colour rather than a small motif. That single figure is where most of the embroiderer's hours went: a line of border is repetition, but a filled paisley has to be shaded from the inside out, and the shading is what makes it read as an object instead of an outline.

On black it does what it should — you see the shawl first and the paisley second, when the end falls open.

Details

• Swati Shahtoosh — woven in Swat, KPK
• Hand-embroidered border on all four sides with large paisley butas at the corners
• Design block-printed first, then embroidered entirely by hand
• Plain black ground with fringed edge
• Approx. 40" × 80"
• Dry clean only

Each shawl is embroidered by hand, so slight variation between pieces is expected and is the mark of hand work rather than a fault.

Ships in Attan's branded box with a thank-you card, ready to gift.