Sozni
Fine needle embroidery worked in floss silk, stitch by stitch.
Chinar Vine Sozni Shawl
Sozni · Approximately nine months of needle work
₹1,24,000
Made to order · 5 weeks
Sozni — the stitch that disappears
Sozni is needle embroidery worked with a very fine needle and untwisted floss silk, most often onto pashmina. The defining quality is restraint of scale: the stitch is small enough that it sinks into the ground weave rather than sitting on top of it, so the surface stays soft and the pattern reads almost as though it were woven in.
The most demanding sozni is do-rukha — worked so that both faces of the cloth are finished, with no reverse. There is no way to shortcut it. The embroiderer works the design twice, in register, often in different colourways on each side, and any error shows on one face or the other.
Because sozni is worked stitch by stitch across a field rather than repeated from a stencil, coverage is what drives time and price. A border-only shawl is a matter of months; a full-field jaal, where the embroidery covers the entire ground, can occupy one person for the better part of a year.
Pashmina itself is a separate question from the embroidery on it. The fibre comes from the undercoat of the Changthangi goat, and it is graded by micron count before it is ever spun.
Your sozni specifics: fibre sourcing and micron grade, how you verify pashmina authenticity, typical coverage-to-time ratios for your pieces, and whether you offer do-rukha as standard or on commission. (placeholder copy — needs real detail)