Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Lagartera Embroidery

Whenever I travel I like to try and find some sort of authentic craft from the places that I visit. Over the weekend I found a leaftlet (above) amongst my craft book collection and was reminded of Lagartera embroidery which I chased down when I was in Seville a few years back.
According to the leaflet (J & P Coats Ltd 1967):

Traditionally, Lagartera Embroidery is worked on linen and is characterised by lively colours, an absence of animal motifs, and the use of geometric motifs suggesting a strong Arabic influence. The women of Lagartera, a village and district in central Spain, used to meet in groups to embroider to make their own dresses and house linen, and it is still custom for brides to have a dowry of this work (as at 1967 that is!)

I found a beautiful shop selling linen and embroidery and was thrilled when I asked the lady about Lagartera to be shown a great selection of the handstitched work. I bought a tablecloth and matching napkins (detail shown below) which I liked for its combination of stitching and drawn thread work. They are yet to be used but definitely deserve a nice afternoon tea for their christening.


1 comment:

sarastitcher said...

At least on my computer, I didn't get any pictures. I'm interested in this kind of embroidery. Could you post the pictures again, please. - sarastitcher