Chope textiles: reversible stitch and open space

Reversible design

A chope is a large embroidered wrap whose layout leaves room for the red ground to show. Impart’s account describes double-running stitch, which makes the design visible on both sides. Triangles and lattice formations recur, and decoration gathers more densely along the long edges. The short ends lack the same enclosing borders. This produces a central red passage through the cloth. Reversibility and the distribution of ornament give chope a recognisable construction within the wider range of phulkari textiles.[1]

Two preserved cloths

The Museum of Art & Photography records a chop phulkari shawl attributed to western Punjab and dated around 1920. Measuring 282 by 181 centimetres, it combines embroidered cotton and coloured floss silks. Its description identifies bands of yellow, pink and purple, large triangular forms along the borders and smaller, spaced triangles in the body. This particular arrangement shows that an open central field need not be completely empty.[2]

Another chope, T00.45.27 in the Textile Museum of Canada, is dated around 1950 and measures 264 by 157 centimetres. The museum records plain-woven cotton with silk-floss embroidery and lists red, light red and green in its colour fields. Its maker is unknown, and the place is given as Punjab in either India or Pakistan. These are two substantial wraps with their own recorded dimensions and palettes. Their shared name does not establish identical decoration, a common maker or one precise place of production.[3]

Wedding context

Impart describes the chope within maternal-family wedding preparations: a grandmother’s embroidery, an uncle’s gift and draping after the ceremonial bath. This is an attributed ceremonial account.[1]

The 1900 Montgomery gazetteer uses chop for red phulkari with flowers along the border, preserving a dated local description alongside the later museum examples.[4]