These folk dresses are absolutely incredible. Can you imagine how long this kind of embroidery would take by hand? Months if not longer. All the fine detail and I know that there are still places in the world where that cut out embroidery is also still done by hand.
I knew about dowdry's but didn't know much about them in Romania.
My mom used to collect hand embroidered waist coats from all around the world, these reminded me of them.
You are right, months if not longer as daylight was short, they had other things to do as everything was done manually.
That's the real thing. Machine embroidery is appreciated as much. Obviously when it comes to costs, handmade costs a fortune.
You mom had a nice and interesting hobby :)