EMBROIDERIES OF INDIA / PHULKARI WORK / COLORS

- The most favoured colour is red and its shades, because Bagh and Phulkari are used during marriage and other festivals. Red is considered auspicious by Hindus and Sikhs.

- Other colours are brown, blue, black, white.

- White was used in Bagh by elderly ladies. Creative ability of Punjabi women has produced innumerable and intricate geometrical patterns. However, most motifs are taken from everyday life. Wheat and barley stalk with ears are popular motifs.

- Paat was red-coloured to symbolize passion, white for purity, golden or yellow for desire and abundance, green for nature and fertility, blue for serenity, purple for a symbiosis between red's energy and blue's calm, orange for a mix of desire and divine energy.

- Khaddar could be of four colours, white being given to mature women or widows while red was associated with youth and was by far the most widely used tone. Black and blue colours were kept for everyday worn shawls as they made stains and dirt go unnoticed.

- Paat's most commonly used colours in the making of Bagh were gold and silvery-white, these tones being a reminder of Punjab's wild flowers and cereal fields but also of the jewels women were wearing.