Parna features in this months edition of my green lifestyle

Parna featue in this months " my green lifestyle magazine. It is a beautifully put together, stylish on online magazine featuring lots of lovely eco products as well as great features.

Coming up Coast magazine, Delicious, BBC Homes and Antiques

Vintage Romanian Hemp Covers

I call the fabric made from this very distinctive Romanian weave "chunky hemp". These pieces werer traditionally used for curtains dividing rooms or perhaps sometime a bed covers. They tend to be quite heavy. They make good bed covers though not usually big enough for a double bed. The paleness is testament to their age as hemp lightens and oftens with washing. Even some of these much washed pieces still have woody bits of hemp. As is the case with many of the textile from these parts the colour are most often red or blue or a combination of the two. Recently I have come across some more unusual colours, red and deep charcoal grey for example. Quite common in these pieces is this rather lovely , I think crochet, joining the panels as in this piece here:

Cushions from vintage embroidery " folk style"

I often come across embroidery in this style but not with such bold colours and on "home made" cloth. more here

Kalotosezeg embroidery

Kalotoszeg is an area in Transylvania, Romania, most of which was at one time Hungarian. Folk traditions in this area are still abundant. I have been commissioning and sellling cushions embroidered in the traditional " writing stitch" for some time now and they are lovely. This type is called "writing stitch" , as the design is first drawn onto the fabric by the "Writing-Woman." These women drew hundreds of patterns free hand from memory for half their village. I am lucky enough to have found a few experts. Traditionally the pattern was first drawn onto the fabric with a goose feather dipped in water mixed with Soot. Now they use pens! Traditionally embroidered in red ( for marriage gifts) blue or black ( for funerals).

This evening I visited an embroiderer, originally from the Kalotoszeg region, I saw many things woven and embroidered by her mother and grandmother. It was explained to me, that under Cecescau the electricity went out at 20.00 in the evening and they wove and embroidered by candle light as recently as 20 years ago!