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Looking at recent photographs of Taliban leaders who are now in charge in Afghanistan, there is one specific garment that is conspicuous by its dullness. I am not referring to the voluminous turbans, but to their dark coloured, undecorated waistcoats. Waistcoats have been worn in Afghanistan for quite some time, but many of them are far from dull and often decorated with colourful embroidery and metallic braids.

A Kandahar waistcoat recently given to the TRC by Marjan Brandsma (1970s, TRC 2021.2551).

Back of Afghan waistcoat TRC 2021.2551.

Batik shawl from Bali, Indonesia, early 21st century, recently donated by Hedi Hinzler in Leiden (TRC 2021.2501).It is clear people are coming back from their holidays as more and more things are happening at the TRC! The telephone is constantly ringing, emails are pinging, parcels and letters arriving, as well as a steady stream of people are popping in to discuss potential projects, to see the exhibition or to attend workshops and courses.

We are adding, for example, a range of workshops and courses to the Agenda, including, for the first time, bobbin lace making! This will take the form of 3x beginners and 3x more advanced techniques. More details can be found here.

We have recently been offered various garments and outfits, including items from as far apart as Macedonia and Indonesia. In addition we have just acquired some Mapula embroideries from South Africa (these will be online later in the week and there will be a special blog about them) and this evening we were sent details about some embroidered and beaded garments (minceka), also from South Africa – the latter items are being seriously considered as part of our deliberate building up of the TRC’s African holdings, but we will need 750 euros to acquire them. Can you help? If yes please make a donation via the IDEAL button to the right.

A little while ago I wrote a blog about zijdjes, cigarette silks produced by the Dutch company of Turmac, between about 1920 and 1934. It was noted in the blog that the embroidered examples now in the TRC Collection were machine, rather than hand stitched. I have had several questions since then about how to tell the difference?

First of all a difference has to be made between a free-motion embroidery machine with a single needle that can be moved all over a piece of cloth, and an industrial embroidery machine which might have hundreds of needles all working in synchronisation. The former tends to be more irregular in shape and a lot closer to free-style hand embroidery. The latter tends to include the repetition of one or more motifs.

Below I want to focus on multiple-needle machine embroidery, which is produced by a variety of machines, namely Cornely (chain stitch), Schiffli (basically satin stitch, zig-zag stitch, running stitch) and Leaver (basically satin stitch, zig-zag stitch, running stitch) machines, and the multiple-needle hand embroidery machine (a wide variety of stitches).

We have just had the August 2021 TRC Intensive Textile Course, and as usual it was intense, inspiring, filled with lots of information and practical elements, but fun at the same time with the chance for the participants, and me, to exchange a wide range of experiences.

Mapula embroidery from South Africa, depicting the funeral of Nelson Mandela.

Traditional Moroccan woman’s kaftan made from Japanese material intended for a kimono sash (second half 20th century). Courtesy Textile Research Centre, Leiden (TRC 2001.0074).The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, has just published its Newsletter (summer 2021). It has a special focus section that contains a number of articles based on an international online conference in 2020 about textile and dress traditions that developed through time and space, and thereby often changed their role and meaning.

The conference was organised by the IIAS with the support of Sandra Sardjono of the Tracing Patterns Foundation in Los Angeles, Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood of the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, and Chris Buckley in Oxford.

The TRC in Leiden houses a fascinating colletion of samplers. They all have a story to tell. This time I want to look at TRC 2014.0075, which dates to the early twentieth century. Yes, it could be called a sampler, but if so, it is an unusual one. I don’t think I have ever seen one like it.

Sampler from the early 20th century, with stamped outlines for embroidered motifs (TRC 2014.0075).

Sampler dated 1756 worked by Jacoba Jans Adegeest, from the Rijnland, the Netherlands (TRC 2020.3683).Two weeks ago the TRC published a blog about lace caps from the Rijnland based on a photo album with photographs of the Van den Akker family, many of whom lived in Zoeterwoude or thereabouts, in the late nineteenth century. In this blog I more or less return to Zoeterwoude, a small village just southeast of Leiden, in the heart of the Rijnland, following the trail of an eighteenth century sampler now in the TRC Collection (TRC 2020.3683).

The sampler has two alphabets: one in small gothic letters, the other in straight capitals. And one line of numbers. For the rest, the sampler is mostly symmetrical. There are two sets of men carrying a big bunch of grapes, a very common motif on Dutch samplers (the two Israeilis returning from the reconnaissance in the land of Canaan). This motif, it so happens, is also depicted in a stone plaque in the centre of the old town of Leiden (see a TRC blog of 4 July 2020).

For several years now the London-based textile organisation SELVEDGE and the TRC Leiden have been working together on various projects, including the writing of articles, book and exhibition reviews, and the organisation of international events (such as SELVEDGE FAIRS). In addition, there have been various discussions with Polly Leonard, the founder and chief editor of SELVEDGE, about how they can actively support the TRC in its plans for establishing a textile artisan centre in Leiden.