A Present from Kholui

13 February 2021

The members of a small group called the Friends of Russian Arts, including myself, recently received a present of lovely embroidered mats made by students at the Art School in Kholui, Russia.  Here’s mine:

These show the techniques of counted thread, drawn thread and pulled thread work – all typical of the embroidery with a geometric character found on household textiles and dress in northern and central Russia, where traditionally flax was grown and linen thread spun and woven into cloth. Linen has a characteristically even weave, and this lends itself to these techniques, as it is possible to count the threads and decorate them in various ways with embroidery.

Drawn thread work (commonly known as Russian Drawnground) involves cutting and withdrawing threads from both warp and weft in such a way that the remaining threads form a grid. This grid is then worked over with an overcast filling. My mat shows this very well, with the grid wrapped completely in red and then, towards the centre, yellow, white and blue threads.

The quatrefoil motifs in the corners of the grid are filled with a very attractive pulled thread technique. For this, threads are not taken out but pulled together to create a lacy effect.

The decorative centre panel is framed with a quiet unworked linen surround, showing the beauty of the cloth – and then a different pulled thread border and corner features.  There are many stitches and techniques here, in such a small piece.  And I know, as I have worked these techniques myself (and used to teach them to Embroiderers’ Guild groups) that this work needs concentration, good eyesight and lots of time!

Here are some other people’s mats, showing different counted thread techniques and colours, all very skilfully worked.