Kalocsa work is cotton floss laid in dense satin stitch, drawn freehand by an íróasszony before a single thread goes in. Colour only became this hot after the Nagyatád mill started supplying colourfast yarn in 1912; before that the cloth was white on white, then black.

This system takes the black branch — the ground worn by older women and used for falikép wall pictures. Black has its own discipline: burgundy and dark green vanish against it, so white daisy and lily-of-the-valley carry the field, and every edge is worked in black thread.