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In order to celebrate Easter in these very strange times we are putting some special embroidery charts online. All of these designs date from the mid-20th century or earlier and come from various parts of Palestine. Please feel free to use them. Enjoy!

The ‘airy fairy’ (iruq al-nafnuf), ‘rose bud’ or ‘orange blossom’ motif from the Beit Dajan region of southern Palestine.

The TRC collection includes a small number of cloths and garments made of gingham cloth. When talking about gingham, some people conjure up images of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz or perhaps typical ‘country’ style cloth associated with both Europeans and Americans. There are others who talk about the gingham kit of Manchester United (2012-2013). By the way, not all United fans were impressed: "Is it a table cloth?" In Holland it is often called Brabants Bont and often associated with table cloths and tea towels. Personally I think of English school uniforms and, in particular, summer dress versions from my youth.

Young child's shorts made of gingham cloth, The Netherlands, 1940's (TRC 2010.0576).

But what exactly is gingham?

Classic 20th century gingham is generally defined as being an even, tabby-weave material in cotton with woven checks that are of an equal size. These checks are normally produced using dyed yarns in only two colours, white with red, blue, green, yellow, purple, black, etc. Some writers also insist that the cloth has to be identical on both sides.

But the story of gingham is more complicated than the above definition indicates. It would appear, for example, that the originally gingham was not necessarily made of cotton, nor was it checked. This quintessential American and European cloth was not even Western in origin.

The word gingham derives from the Malay word genggang, meaning a striped or checked material, probably in either silk or cotton. Via European companies such as the Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie and the British East India Company, this type of cloth was brought to Europe and adapted to local traditions. Many early versions of European gingham were striped, but made of linen.

On Tuesday, 7 April 2020, Susan Cave and Beverley Bennett wrote:

One of the TRC’s oldest and most beautiful quilts (TRC 2019.2402) was made in the years before the American Civil War (1861-1865). Many people have asked us if it was made by slaves. The answer is probably yes, but under the guidance of the Mistress of the house. How do we know this?

A so-called Flowers and Berries quilt from the USA, c. 1850 (TRC 2019.2402).

There is a large body of supporting evidence, public records, first-hand accounts and the actual object itself. The quilt had to have been made before 1865 (the end of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery) and the date of ours is c. 1850. Slaves made quilts for their own beds, usually out of scraps, and few have survived the rigours of the years, but there are reports of much quilting on frames going on in the grand homes of the times.

On Saturday 4 April, TRC volunteer Susan Cave writes:

The impressions we have of Southern Appalachia are often those of making moonshine and of people shooting their neighbours. Folklore and misconception most of it, but there are definitely ‘mountain people’ in those hills and while the men may have been handy with their shotguns, the women were certainly handy with their needles making ‘mountain quilts’. The TRC Chinese Coin quilt (TRC 2019.2229) has a story that follows a misconception, misrepresentation, folklore, call it what you like….

Chinese Coin quilt from North Carolina, USA, c. 1900 (TRC 2019.2229).

On Friday, 3 April 2020, TRC volunteer Shelley Anderson writes:

Spools of silk and a winding mill, to prepare a warp for weaving, Maison des Canuts, Lyons. Photograph: S. Anderson.

Many people are having to work from home during the corona virus pandemic. Working from home has a long history in textiles, as I discovered visiting a small museum in Lyons, France (pre-pandemic, I will add). Lyons, in the south of France, was the French centre for silk production for over 400 years. The Maison des Canuts (House of the Canuts) is a small museum in Lyons’s old Croix Rousse area. Canuts were independent silk weavers who worked out of their own homes. They had up to three looms in their home and they supervised journeymen, whom they provided with room and board.

Weaving gold thread passementerie in the Maison des Canuts, Lyons. Photograph: S. Anderson.

In the early 19th century there were an estimated 8,000 canuts in Lyon alone, supervising some 20,000 other silk weavers. Canuts were the mainstay of Lyons’s silk industry, and their silk made Lyons a true city. By the mid-19th century one out of every two workers in the city was involved in the silk trade. The international demand for French silk was huge; one-third of all of France’s manufactured exports was silk textiles, produced in Lyon.

On Thursday, 2 April 2020, former TRC volunteer Alice Jaspars writes from London:

In times such as these, the importance of tradition is evident. Seeking to align ourselves with histories, both national and personal, is one way in which we can anchor ourselves when the world seems increasingly uncertain.

Yet many of the traditions we consider to be the oldest are in fact recent and even invented. There is no better example of this than the adoption of the Scottish kilt. Worn by school children and members of the armed forces alike, the tartan garb unites classes and nations in kind.

A 78th Highland Regiment kilt (1970’s, Scotland; TRC 2016.0571b).

On Wednesday, 1st April 2020, TRC volunteer Heidi-Elena Stanionyte (Estonia), writes:

Regional costumes can be considered as an the important part of many world cultures. In the Baltic countries, Estonia has a significant range of costumes from different regions, which are also known as parish. A well-known region is Kadrina parish, which is situated in the northern part of the country. A characteristic feature of its regional costume is a blouse with embroidered decoration (called ‘’käised” in Estonian), which covers the front and the collar.

Kadrina embroidered blouses are worn by married and unmarried women, together with a simple sleeveless shirt. The blouses are made of linen, which is a material that was widely used in other parishes around Estonia. Typically, the embroidery is worked with bold colours, especially reds, blues and greens.

The Kadrina blouse collection in the Estonian National Museum houses many examples of these blouses, with rich floral embroidery worked with silk, cotton or woollen thread. The oldest examples date to the late seventeenth century. 

Detail of an embroidered blouse from the Kadrina parish, northern Estonia, early 21st century (TRC 2020.0010).

The history of this form of embroidery goes back to the times when the Baltic Germans ruled Estonia. Local women learned the technics of embroidery from the Germans. They appreciated this form of exotic embroidery. As the time passed, Estonian handicraft embraced the foreign influences and incorporated them into their own traditions. For example, golden sequins were added, and this extra feature is seen on a blouse now housed in the TRC Collection (TRC 2020.0010), and illustrated here.