Sunday, March 28, 2010

Chunky Romanian Hemp


Chunky, thickly spun hand woven hemp from Romania.

The striped comes from Moldavia, an area in East Romania. It was woven to make bags- typically worn by the csango, a minority group living on this area who speak an ancient form of Hungarian and have a very strong tradition of folk culture including music , dance and textiles.

Moldavia is one of the most beautiful areas of Romania, dramatic mountainous landscape and small villages, lots of traditional wood houses, many with ornately carved wooden tiles.

The plain hemp is a very unusual, decorative weave, it may also have been woven for bags but more likely for use in the home.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Blinds from vintage linen


Look at this brilliantly simple blind made by a length of vintage linen by Constanca. More pictures on her lovely blog here:


Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Sampler style embroidered cushion


This cushion was embroidered using fine cross stitch, by a master embroiderer in Hungary. We were asked to make it to feature in an exhibition in Buckingham palace Victoria and Albert: Art and Love


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/7228202/Queen-Victorias-passion-for-nudity-goes-on-display-in-new-art-exhibition.html

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Bespoke initials on vintage linen cushions


Its taken a while but parna now offers bespoke embroidered initials on vintage linen grain sack cushions.

Some of the original sacks have initials, originally monograms were embroidered to indicate to the mill owner the owner of the sack. Our monogrammed sacks and cushions have always been very popular.