Until the beginning of this century, the fabric was handmade in households from linen, hemp, cotton yarn, or Romanian raw silk called borangic, and also the decorative threads. Plants and flowers were used for thread dyeing. The colors were chosen to ease energy and to “talk” about the wearer. In late autumn, when agricultural work was completed, the sittings began. Women and girls of the village, from a very early age, gathered together and began the needlework.
They got inspiration from one another, but their crafts were never identical, there was an undeclared contest that one project would strive to be more beautiful than the next. Before starting the handwork a prayer for divine communication was said. Everything was painstakingly handmade and the embroidery may very well have taken months to sew. The same rough and hardened hands that did the physical work in the fields, would nimbly create the haute couture sewing we now consider works of art, often under candlelight.
The legacy is overwhelming and now we discover more and more… These blouses are again just out of dowry boxes, they are no longer just exhibits in museums.
Read in the following MAGIC AND RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE
