Of all the crafts of Kutch, embroidery is the best known. Many books and research studies have been written on this subject as the variety, the quality, and the imaginative use of design and colour is a fascinating topic. These books generally all agree that Kutch, together with the Saurashtra area to the south, is the finest and most abundant source of folk embroidery in the world.
There are about 20 different communities who do embroidery, each using different types of stitch and each having their own particular designs. For the purposes of this study we can only look at a general overview of Kutchi embroidery.
With the exception of Mochi bharat, all the Kutchi embroidery was traditionally made for use by the family. The most important social reason for making embroidered crafts was for the dowry which a daughter would carry to her husband's home, but embroidery is also linked to other events.

These communities use embroidery to embellish cloth used fot many purposes. Most of the women wear embroidered kapadu or kanjari (types of blouse) and ghaghro, dharavo or pado (types of skirt). Their odhani (veil-cloth) is usually not embroidered. Men and boys may wear embroidered clothes on special occasions.Pieces are also made to adorn animals, and torans, chakla (coverlet) and dharanivo (cover for pile of mattresses) are made to adorn the home.

Girls would start stitching from four years old building up a collection of pieces for their marriage. Most embroidery-making communities are traditionally pastoralists so the men would go out with the animals, sometimes for weeks or even months, while the women stayed at home. It is sometimes put forward that women then had plenty of time to sit about making the embroidery, but the reality is that maybe three to four hours would be spent collecting water; the rest of the day spent collecting fuel, washing, cleaning, looking after children and animals and maybe woking in the fields. Then if there was any daylight still available, their `leisure' time would be spent doing embroidery. Finishing each piece of embroidery would therefore take several weeks, or if very large of intricate, several months.