Although practiced throughout the region that comprises erstwhile princely hill states ,the craft has come to be associated specifically with chamba owing to the patronage afforded it by rulers of the area as well as to the quality of the local craftsmanship .Traditionally ,the chamba rumals were silk embroidered square pieces of handspun and handwoven unbleached ‘mulmul’, fine cloth that were used to cover dishes of food , gifts to significant persons and offerings to a deity, or exchanged between the families of the bride and the groom as a token of goodwill .The embroidery was done in a double satin stitch technique known as dorukha ,which ensured an exact replication of image of the reverse of the fabric . Although practiced by woman from all strata of pahari society, the embroidery style developed by the woman of the upper classes and the royalty has now come to be exclusively related to the craft. Both the folk and court styles usually rendered the popular themes of the Raaslila , Raasmandal , Ashtanayika , hunts and chaupad , dice game ; the styles and colour schemes, however were vastly different. The folk style made generous use of brilliant colours including pink, lemon yellow, purple and green while the court form evolved a more sophisticated colour palette that consisted of pale shades ochre, dark green and blue. The court style reflects the popular pastimes of pahari man and woman from royal and noble families through the addition of details such as the smoking of the hookah, woman show talking to parrots, playing with a ball or dice or listening to music. It also derived its compositions, border motifs and floral ornamentation from the wall paintings of the Rang Mahal of chamba and the pahari miniature tradition. Often, trained miniature painters from the court were called in to draw the compositions on to the fabric to provide colour schemes. It is due to this close relationship with the painting tradition that the chamba rumals have been called ‘paintings in embroidery’. In recent years, artisans have been encouraged to reproduce earlier masterpieces in order to sustain the craft. Simultaneously, efforts have also been made to diversify the craft products to include a wider range of items such as caps, hand fans, blouses and bedspreads.