The Mary Dress

This is the Mary dress created by Gemma Buxton from a vintage hemp sheet from parna and two beautifully appliqued and embroidered panels.

Gemmas work brings together an interest in the history of art of embroidery with concerns about how we interact with the physical world in the 21st century. She uses narrative from everyday life , in this case the struggle between pests and food production.

The Mary Dress was created for a woman who struggles with the nature and the environment to survive. The dress is made from home grown, spun and woven hemp, the same fabric that was worn by peasants working in the fields. and is adorned with the two finely panels and the piece as a whole represents the struggles and glories in a ordinary working life.

The dress is on display at weekends until the 17th October at St Marys in the Marsh , Kent and is part of the "Art in Romney Marsh" event 2010.

There is more about the dress and Gemmas other work on her blog
Contact Gemma for more information
http://www.gemmabuxton.com/
http://www.gemmassewntogether.blogspot.com/

Textile Society Fair this Sunday

A reminder that the The Textile Society is holding its first London Fair at Kensington Hall on Sunday. There will be lots of very interesting antique and vintage textiles from many parts of the world. Parna will have a selection of Vintage Hungarian grain sacks, Transylvanian embrodiery, grain sack cushions amongst other things.

Doors open at 10.00 ( 9.30 for trade ) Admission is £7.50

Hungarian Embroidery (2) Kalotaszeg

Kalotaszeg is a region in Transylvania which was once part Hungary. This area has retained many folk traditions and is famous for , amongst other things its embroidery.

The traditional embroidery from this area is called "written" embroidery, the designs were originally drawn in freehand by the writing woman of the area, who were skilled and memorised many designs. The embroidery was traditionally done on home loomed hemp and in one colour using wool or cotton thread, most commonly red or blue or white.

The second from top image is of one of our cushions, drawn by a writing woman on home loomed vintage hemp and embroidered in cotton. This is a traditional design but embroidered in a non- traditional coloured thread.

The other images are Kalotaszeg embroidery patterns . I was lucky enough to find a book containing hundreds of these, we will be trying some more out soon.

Traditional Hungarian Embroidery (1)

Today one of the very talented and patient women who embroider for parna gave me a region by region lesson in the traditional embroidery of Hungary.

The images above come from a piece from the village of Buszak in west Hungary, a village first settled 500 years ago and now with a population of 1200 people or so. Buzsak has a rich folk heritage.

In Buzsak embrodiery patterns are geometric and embroidered in red and blue with small amounts of yellow and green. The colours have to be absolutely spot on , a shade or two out simply wont do!

Living Etc.

This is from Julys Living Etc. Spoons by Nic web, vintage linens by parna, Khadi linens by The Conran Shop , Glass bottles from Egg. Click on the images to enlarge and read the text

Textile Society London Fair

I will be exhbiting at the Textile Society London Fair, September 26th. 10.30-16.30.

In Kensington town Hall the Fair promises to be a textile extravaganza with more than 60 dealers of antique textiles.

Admission is £7.50

For more information email me kath@parna.co.uk or click on the link above