About Shikha Walia

Shikha Walia has been a mother, a teacher, a housewife and an artisan, often in the same day. The crochet is the part strangers see. What she brings to it is attention. She notices a row that sits one stitch out of line. She notices a colour that goes flat under a different light. She notices a strap that will lose its shape in a year. Most of what she makes is pulled apart at least once before anyone else sees it. That is the difference between work that is good and work you keep. Anyone can follow a pattern. Very few people will undo an evening of it because one row bothered them. She has no factory, no team and no production line. She has a hook, a basket of yarn, and the patience to spend several days on one piece. That is the whole operation.

Shikha standing behind her exhibition table, rows of her clutches in front of her.

Four steps

How a piece is made

01
A conversation
It starts with what you have in mind. A colour, a size, an occasion, or a piece you saw and liked.
02
The yarn and the stitch
She picks the yarn first, then the stitch pattern, because the two decide each other. A shell stitch wants a yarn that holds its shape.
03
Made in one pair of hands
A clutch takes a few days. A larger bag takes a week or more. Nothing is rushed and nothing is exactly the same twice.
04
It gets passed on
When the last row is done, the piece is yours. No one else has one quite like it. She passes the craft on too. At Nai Disha, an education non-profit, she taught children the basics of needle and thread.

The work itself

Six techniques, one pair of hands

The stitch is chosen before the first loop. It decides how the fabric is built, row by row. Some pieces also carry beads or sequins. These are the six techniques she works in.

Star stitch
Each star gathers several loops into one centre and closes them. That leaves the small hole at its heart. The rows repeat evenly across the bag.
Hand-added beads
Every bead is added by hand, one at a time. There is no shortcut for this one.
Checkered
Raised and flat blocks alternate across the fabric. The pattern comes from the stitches themselves, not from a second colour.
Colourwork
A second colour, counted out stitch by stitch, so the motif is part of the bag rather than printed on it.
Shell stitch
Fans of stitches that overlap the row beneath, which is what gives the surface its depth.
Sequin work
Rows of sequins run across the flap between rows of stitches, so the light moves across the bag as it moves.