Transylvanian textiles

Before 1920 and the treat of Trianon the area of Romania known as Transylvania used to belong to Hungary. The tradition of Hungarian folk crafts and culture is still very much alive in parts of Transylvania. It is still possible to find women weavimg and embroidering textiles. Zsu zsu, having spent her life in a very traditional village has spent years dealing in antique textiles. Recently she has worked at trying to reproduce the textiles of the past, harnessing the skills of women weavers she has developed a range of typical Transylvanian textiles. Each is made of hand woven fabric and trimmed with hand made crochet.

Hemp

Vintage, home loomed linen and hemp is lovely but one day there will be no more left to source. I have been on the look out for altenatives for ages and have found a small co-opertive who grow, harvest and hand weave their own hemp to make tea towels. More on this coming soon I hope.

Vintage hemp

More lovely, strong, eco friendly vintage linen and hemp rolls. Fantastic for bench cushions.

Perfect for table runners, soft furnishings, window dressings and upholstery

Most commonly available in a variety of neutral backgounds with red or blue stripes. I have also got some more unsuual colours: green, caramel, blue and red- email me kath@parna.co.uk for details.

Vintage embrodiered pieces

Wall hangings, kitchen linen, clothes, sheets and even sacks were beautifully hand embroidered. Sometimes for the dowry chest, sometimes, as in the case of vintage grain sacks, for functional purposes and sometimes to decorate the home. Wallhangings, often with a slogan would be hung in the kitchen, on the wall alongside the bed to add warmth and in the best room for decorative purposes.

vintage linen grain sacks

More lovely antique grain sacks. Hungarian grain sacks were woven from home grown, hand spun hemp. usually plain or with red or blue stripes, the stripes indicated to the mill from where the grain came. Some also have hand embrodiered initials.

Vintage Romanian grain sacks tend to be a different weave, some are very heavy indeed. We have a few of these with a caramel stripe, the caramel colour was obtained by using elder berries.. picture coming soon

beautiful fabrics

It has been a long cold winter here in Hungary. Heavy snow in the mountains in Transylvania has meant that our supply of bespoke embrodiery has been a bit slow. Apologies to any of you waiting for a cushion, they should be with you soon .

We have recently taken delivery of some really beautiful and unsual fabrics and in roll of uo to 30 meters in length. Check the website for details

trade show

Parna will be exhibiting at Top Drawer Spring. Top Drawer is a design led home and gift trade fair held in the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, London. We are excited to be introducing some more embroidery designs and other items in our "from vintage" range. A sneak preview will be available on this blog soon.

There is an amazing 20% off everything in teh parna shop until the 5 th January.