Inside a modest home in Indira Nagar, a neighborhood in the border district of Barmer in India’s western state of Rajasthan, several women gather in a small room one afternoon, preparing their needles and yarns for the hours of work ahead.

The women have gathered, as women in these villages often do, to work through a batch of orders, moving between one another’s homes to stitch, talk, and help one another along.

They work side by side, their hands carry needles tethered to brightly colored threads that dive from one stitch into the other. The intricate motifs and patterns they sew onto clothing and handkerchiefs are part of the traditional Sindhi embroidery, often passed down from grandmothers and mothers to daughters.

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The embroidery fits into the edges of the day.…