Paisley roundup I

I've started researching designs for aari work. There are many ideas out there but not so many medieval examples that I've found. For my first few samplers I'm going to think small so I've setteled on paisley / mango patterns which seemed popular in medieval India.

(above) A material fragement from Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. From: Indian Block-Printed Textiles Traded to Egypt 13th- to 17th-century Indian cotton trade textiles found in Egyptian sites Exhibit. No date is stated. It seems the Kelsey Museum is rather poor at showing dates for online items.

I've patterened four different motifs from this fabric, three paisley type  items, which when viewed in context are more likely representing trees and plants, and a rondel sort of thing. Stay tuned for more randomly inspired paisley patterns!

 

Aari embroidery patterns

I've been researching aari embroidery patterns. I've found a whole bunch of modern designs and designs created by various bloggers but not much in the way of medieval designs.

An Indian Heritage site has a number of simple motifs, however I'm not sure how old 'heritage' is.

I quite like these three designs. I think they'd make nice simple cuffs or trim on something.

To fix the apparent drought of medieval designs, I've started downloading documented images of cave paintings and such and copying out the designs. More on that to come.