Some friends have recently come back from a trip to Afghanistan – as you do! Knowing of my interest in embroidery, they brought back some Afghani embroidered bookmarks for me to see.
They are incredibly finely worked, with everything in counted satin stitch, worked by hand. The stitches are miniature! They appear to be worked on a slightly synthetic fabric, with a slightly synthetic thread for the embroidery. It has a lot of sheen, but doesn’t appear to be silk. The designs are gorgeous geometric designs.
I asked my friends if the embroidery was in a traditional style, and they didn’t know. (They didn’t ask enough questions!) But seeing some of their photos of shops selling textiles, there appeared to be a bit in similar styles, so it possibly is a traditional style. But from what area or tribal group or tradition, I do not know.
Interestingly, one of the bookmarks has a cross on it. I asked why this would be, coming from a Muslim country. They said that basically all Westerners are seen as being Christian, so it was done for the tourist market. I can’t imagine they get many actual tourists there, but I suppose there are a lot of NGOs and military people passing through.
The bookmarks were a wonderful treat for me to see!
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
People never do ask enough questions, do they?
These look to me as though they are either traditional designs (except for the cross) or possibly European designs filtered through traditional techniques. If I were in the position of trying to appeal to a market that consisted of outsiders, I think I would try to give them something “familiar and yet different”.
After all, that’s where chintzes came from!