Embroidery was one of my mom's hobbies together with knitting and crocheting. As a young girl she learned it from her mother and since it was traditional to pass from generation to generation she tried to teach me too. Sadly I was not interested so much and with regret I cannot present any of my own.
I will always remember her doing something - knitting a jumper or crocheting something that can be used as decoration. So were all of the embroidery staff. Funny enough they were everywhere - my mother was covering the tables, radio or tv set, putting them on every piece of furniture. They really were all over the place.
The pictures I would like to show you are some of her works I kept since she passed away.
These are traditional Bulgarian patterns. In the past the women were using not just their imagination but all the figures got some symbolic meaning. In my mom's embroidery she used what was typical pattern that can be found in different crafts like weaving, carpet making. National costumes are lavishly embroidered too. The main colours used are red and white.
My mom liked to use more colours and to combine them in such way.
The rose is quite popular in Bulgaria. In our Rose valley, the rose oil is produced and used in the fragrances. You may see on the label of your favourite perfume Bulgarian rose as an ingredient.
Some blue colour in one of her works.
And more stylized roses. This one took my mom quite some time to finish it and I think it was her favourite.
Another example of traditional red and white combined with other colours.
Bulgarian embroidery continue to inspire the designers to use it in their fasion collections.
This is just a small example from Valentino collection in 2015.
What was surprising for me is the limited edition of Coca Cola with six colourful embroidery representing six regions of Bulgaria and the brand name written in Bulgarian language (we use Cyrilic alphabet). As a matter of fact the company used its name in Bulgarian language for the first time in 1965.
There is a big poster at the exit of my town Varna and I tried to photograph from the van this morning.
Please excuse the quality.
Of course the better image is below.
This is the map of my country Bulgaria. It may be small, but got huge heritage of beautiful artwork.
With this small contribution to Culture Vulture Challenge, initiated by @eroche I showed you a glimpse of Bulgarian culture with original works.
Thank you for reading, upvoting, resteeming and commenting.
Much love
Neli
I must admit that the culture of Bulgaria fascinates me and produces curiosity. The embroidery is beautiful. Thanks for sharing. Greetings from Venezuela.
Thank you very much for your kind words :-)
hi @nelinoeva,
I am from the Culture Vulture for CNers, a cross-culture translation project in collaboration with @ eroche and carried out by @ deanliu and me. We'll pick at least one article every week and translate it into Chinese, aiming to bring cultural diversity to the #CN community.
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Hi @ygern,
i am honoured to have my post translated and to be seen by the #CN community.
Thank you very much!
Thanks :)
Thank you for taking part in this months #culturevulture competition. Good Luck
Thank you very much!
Your embroidery is amazing! It is sad that this art is not practiced so much in the West. In the old times this was very popular and the forms actually had symbolic meaning. Some were so called "guardian ornaments" intended to scare away the evil spirits or other things. I love that each nation used to have their own national costume and on most of them one can see embroidered ornaments.
I am actually half-bulgarian so I remember my grandmother giving me a beautiful wool dress of this type called "nosiya" and told me that the flowers and forms there were unique for the region where she had grown up. Your post warms me with memories of my childhood! Thank you!
I am more than happy to bring nice memories with my post. :-)
Indeed each region got their own unique pattern and all are beautiful. It is great that our mothers or grandmothers kept the tradition and now it is our turn to continue.
Thank you very much for your comment and welcome to steemit! :-)
Thanks, I am excited to join! I pray that the traditions of our ancestors are not lost. There is so much more into it - the traditional dancing like horo, instruments and music, and the cuisine, the unique traditional herbal medicine.
Happy to meet you!
So pretty! I love to embroider and learnt from my granny, who is Dutch. She embroiders similar patterns actually! Good luck with your entry into the #culturevulture challenge!
So nice to see a fellow Bulgarian here! Your post makes me proud! Keep up with the good work @nelinoeva . See you around!
Welcome:-)
Добре дошъл :-)
Ще се радвам да видя още творби от такъв талантлив художник.
Благодаря ти! Тук съм вече 4 дни и ми харесва доста за сега. Тепърва започвам с постването на мои творби. :))
So pretty! I love to embroider and learnt from my granny, who is Dutch. She embroiders similar patterns actually! Good luck with your entry into the #culturevulture challenge!
Thank you so much!
It is interesting to get to know more about other cultures and to see how much in common we have.
My mother was a knitter, I've tried I just make a mess lol
Beautiful, your mother was talented.
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