Beautiful, embroidered wall hangings from Transylvania

Antique blouses from the Kalotaszeg region of Romania

Beautiful detail in these antique blouse from one of the Kalotaszeg villages in Transylvania. Romania.  Fine cotton, beautifully smocked/pleated and embroidered over the pleats. One supplier tells me that they used to place  still hot freshly baked bread over the freshly pleated garments to keep the pleats in place. A load of bread instead of an iron! 

Cross stitch embroidery from North East Hungary

Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg is an area situated in the North East of Hungary bordering Romania and The Ukraine. This area has been well known for cross stitch embroidery for well over 100 years. A whole cottage industry grew up around producing embroidered items for home and abroad, particularly to Germany.

Designs were originally stitched in red with a little black. With growing export to Germany they started to embroider in blues. The most famous patterns were the cockscomb, also known as the wolves pawprint.




They embroidered peacocks to symbolise beauty and pigeons or doves to symbolise happiness.



People knew these patterns by heart. If the pattern was to be embroidered by another family the pattern would be transferred to something like trracing paper or greaseproof paper. They embroidered with the help of a small mirror. Often the woman of the family would start a piece and embroider one stem of each cross stitch. Each family made 2 or 3 patterns. The children would come home from school and the husband from working and they would embroider the cross to the stems already embroidered by the woman of the house. They embroidered on cloth that they wove themselves.




Counted cross stitch require that for each stitch the number of threads being embroidered over are counted.These days they embroider on a cloth with a slightly more open weave, this way the threads are easier to see. It is said that in the old days the cloth woven in this area was some of the most even and skillfully woven in the land. The even weave of the cloth was important whe used as a base for counted cross stitch.

This area of Hungary is quite distinctive with some beautifully kept small villages. The embroidery heritage is quite clear when you visit the villages in this area, one can still see women sitting outside houses chatting and embroidering. Churches are decorated with embroidery.

A few summers ago I visited Beregdaroc, Takos, Csaroda, with a friend, there is a piece on her blog here

Thank you to Eniko for educating me on the history of Hungarian textile craft. Her knowledge on the subject really is amazing.


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Antique Cross Stitch Embroidery

This is a finely cross stitched antique wall hanging.  I took it to the restorer as there were some small holes. She said that they used to spin paper into the cotton thread to save money. She also recognizes this as an embroidery made by ethnic Hungarians in the Ukraine who used to bring embroidery to Hungary in exchange for flour and bread which were hard to come by in the Ukraine at the time.  However I am more inclined to think that this was made by ethnic Hungarians living in Transylvania... anyone any thoughts? I have included an image of the back  of the piece

Kalocsa Embroidery

Kalocsa , 88 miles South of Budapest is a small town famous for its paprika and its folk art.

Colourful motifs including flowers and paprika were traditionally painted on walls, furniture, eggs and embroidered to make clothes and home furnishings

This style of embroidery using bright colours was popular at the beginning of the 20th century. Before that the embroidery of this area was generally done with white thread on white cloth.

The examples above are all vintage and embroidered on home woven cloth.

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

Hungarian embroidery

As I helped a friend move into a new flat the other day I spotted this sampler on the kitchen wall. Embroidered in 1934 on fine, hand woven linen it shows the embroidery styles /techniques. Most originate from a particular region- more on this later