Kaross Featured Embroiderer for May: Traiza Chiloane

The Kaross embroiderers are so good at what they do, so quietly confident in their demeanour as they carefully hand-embroider every single stitch that goes into Kaross’ functional art pieces, that they actually make it look easy. The opposite is in fact true – Kaross’ products require a lot of skill, involving ability, creativity and precision in large measures.

The Kaross embroiderers learn their skills at home

It is generally not well known that we do not train any of our embroiderers at Kaross. They learn from their mothers, sisters and grandmothers at home, and when they come to Kaross they are already able to embroider.

The process then becomes one of starting on easier, smaller pieces and working their way up to larger, more technical pieces, with guidance from Kaross in terms of technique and quality.  Considering that the embroiderers work from home, the guidance process is of necessity an arm’s length one – which means the success of our business lies in the dedication and attention to detail shown by each embroiderer.

Traiza has only been embroidering for 3 years, but has progressed tremendously in this time

This makes the achievements of our featured embroiderer for May, Raizer Tseisetso (Traiza) Chiloane, even more impressive, as she only started with Kaross in June 2014, a relatively short window of time to achieve a high level of skill.

Amongst other things, Traiza is excellent at embroidering Kaross’ sets of padded placemats. These are very popular items but they are hard work, as they require precise stitching and attention to detail to achieve a uniform look across the set.

Traiza (36) is married to Solly, a Driver in Johannesburg, and they have 3 children, Delicious(16), Nesta (8) and Semi (6). Traiza says she is proud of Kaross, because it supports her and her family and does the best for her.

We of course think that we are even prouder of Traiza than she is of Kaross!

 View and buy works by Traiza and our other Featured embroiderers here