Hazara women embroider a plain cotton ground in brick stitch and short satin stitch until the cloth beneath disappears. Shapes are counted, not drawn: lozenges, chevrons, chequerboards and stepped triangles built block by block, every edge a staircase of threads.

This system takes that discipline literally. The dark ground is never open field — it survives as the thin lattice between silk blocks. Colour changes mark state; a black-and-white double running stitch divides one field from the next. Nothing is left empty, and nothing curves.