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Writer's picturekristamwest

Traveling to Greece to study folk embroidery



As a folk embroidery designer, I find inspiration through a variety of sources—original textiles, photos, vintage needlework patterns, and my library of folk embroidery books. But one of my favorite ways to be inspired is to see actual embroideries and folk costumes in person, something I got to do recently when I traveled to Greece. Spending time in the presence of these amazing textiles is both inspiring and humbling—inspiring in that I get to study complex folk embroidery textiles just inches away and feel the power and vibrancy of their colors and designs, and humbling to be in the company of such master works of folk embroidery art. I’ve long dreamed of making a trip to focus solely on the beautiful household embroideries and folk costumes found in museums throughout Greece (all my previous trips to Greece were focused on my tailoring work), and this past month I finally got to make that trip. Here’s where I went and what I saw:


folk embroidery with vyzantino stitch
Hand embroidery by Areti

I arrived in Paiania, a suburb of Athens near the airport which is set among rolling hills lush with olive and fig trees. I began by spending several days with my embroidery tutor, Areti, so that I could understand various techniques and styles and better understand what I would be seeing in the museums I would visit. We spent a delightful few days, with Areti demonstrating techniques I wanted to learn, such as how to work a fringe finish on a table runner, and how to work Romanian stitch (called vyzantino in Greek) over larger surface areas. She showed me a more complex way of working the corners of drawn thread hemming and I loved the crisp effect it created (I’ll be adding a new how-to video on this variation). Along with her demonstrations, she shared some of her exquisite collection of embroideries she had stitched, most of which she had created based upon historic textiles.


folk embroidery vest from perachora greece
Sigouni (women's vest) from Perachora folk museum

We took occasional breaks for Greek coffee and one afternoon, she made a lovely lunch of gigantes, a dish of baked lima beans with tomato and onion that is one of my favorite Greek dishes. For our final day together, we traveled an hour west of Athens to the small village of Perachora, which houses a small folk museum that is filled with folk costume and embroidered textile heirlooms of the villagers. I’ve been in a lot of museums over the years, but none in which the docent showing the collection could point to a lavish sigouni (a type of embroidered wool vest worn by women) and explain that it was her grandmother’s! The love and respect this community had for its traditions was beautifully evident in the thoughtful displays and I loved hearing about their personal connections to the textiles.


At the end of the day, Areti returned to Athens and I began my solo tour of folk costumes museums, traveling the following morning to Nafplio to visit the Folklore Museum of the Peloponnese. Due to various political and historical factors, Nafplio was a busy cultural crossroads and continues to be a popular tourist destination. This museum features a wide variety of costumes from many regions, a few of which are displayed in the wonderful opening display just inside the front doors, which showcases a wide variety of Greek art—textiles, ceramics, paintings—and is an interesting juxtaposition of artistic media which shows the various historic elements of Greek decorative design flowing through the ages (as in the Art Deco dress below). The second and third floors of the museum have multiple cases of folk costume along with a large weaving display of several looms. The museum is located in the old section of Nafplio, which is filled with charming pastel-colored buildings with bougainvillea cascading from every balcony. The narrow streets are a pedestrian paradise, with shops and tavernas on every side, and I spent an evening happily wandering through them, taking photos and making notes of the brightly-painted doors for future color palettes. I even found a shop where the owner was hand-weaving silk scarves and we chatted for a little while.


blue Art Deco dress inspired by folk embroidery
Art Deco dress inspired by folk embroidery

The next morning I took the bus from Nafplio to Kalamata, and was simply stunned with the beauty of the landscape as we climbed through the hills of the Peloponnese, drove by lush farms and orchards, and then wound through yet more hills. Being from the beautiful Pacific Northwest, I have a high bar for natural beauty, and this bus ride did not disappoint! As we descended down into Kalamata, I could see why this seaside city is a popular destination with Greeks—the hills sheared off into the Mediterranean sea creating the most beautiful landscape.


I had come to Kalamata to visit the Victoria Karelias Folk Costume Collection, considered one of the premiere collections of folk costume in all of Greece. The Collection began in 2016 with the donation of Mrs Victoria Karelias, an avid collector of folk costumes for many decades. It now houses over 100 folk costumes, jewelry, and accessories, which are beautifully displayed in a setting that was architecturally designed specifically for the collection and has unique features such as rotating pedestals which ascend and descend over three stories, displaying some of the most magnificent costumes. The Collection hosts thousands of visitors every year, including over 3000 Greek schoolchildren.


Victoria Karelias Folk Costume Collection display
Victoria Karelias Folk Costume Collection display

I went in the first morning for a “quick” visit, thinking I would check the camera angles for taking the videos they had kindly allowed me to record the following day, and I ended up staying over three hours! The collection is simply stunning—set against black backgrounds and with helpful interactive tablets next to every case (complete with photos of each costume showing front, side, and back view—an embroiderer’s dream!), the space and the costumes are dramatic, elegant, and exquisitely compelling. While I was there, Mrs Karelias stopped by and I was so honored to meet her in person. At age 88, she continues to be passionate about folk costume and visits the collection every week. I only hope I can be as passionate at that age!


The costumes in the collection are arranged by style, rather than by historic or regional period, and for research, this is very helpful as I could see a group of costumes with similar styles or techniques altogether in one case and compare and contrast them. I came back the following morning, recorded videos, and spent another delightful few hours in the collection, already looking forward to pouring over my photos in the months ahead. On my last morning in Kalamata, I went swimming in the Mediterranean just as the sun was rising behind the hills and it was a magical moment. I loved my time here and knew I would be back.


closeup of folk costume embroidery with gold and red
closeup of embroidery from VK Collection

After Kalamata came the most intrepid portion of my journey. I had decided to travel back to Athens and then up to Arachova, a small town two and a half hours northwest of Athens and about 20 minutes south of the historical site of Delphi. I have been particularly drawn to embroidery designs from folk costume of this region over the last couple of years and I wanted to see them in person at the small village folk museum. On the ride from Athens to Arachova, I saw field after field of cotton and was delighted to find out later in my trip that the Traditional Groundcloth I use in many of my designs is made from the cotton grown in these fields. It was amazing to see the origin of the very first folk embroidery fabric I experienced as a little cotton blossom. My taxi driver even insisted on pulling over to the side of the road and gathering me a handful of cotton fluff, which instantly became one of my most treasured souvenirs!


view of mountains from Arachova Greece
view from Arachova Greece

While I knew that Arachova was a great place to see folk costume, what I didn’t know is that it is a very popular tourist spot. The village perches among the mountains and is the stuff that vacation photos are made of—stucco houses with red roofs and beautiful balconies overlooking magnificent mountain views. In a village with one very narrow main road, it was quite entertaining to watch enormous tour buses go lumbering up the narrow, curving road and see the ensuing drama when two tour buses could not pass each other!


The Arachova folk museum had several beautiful costumes and some excellent pieces of weaving, but I was most grateful I had made the trek north when I traveled the following day to a small village called Chrisso about 25 minutes north. I had heard the Chrisso museum was good and at this point in my trip, I had seen a lot of folk costumes, so I thought it was worth the 20 euro taxi ride to check things out. Once again, I was treated to amazing views as the taxi wound down from the mountains of Arachova and I saw the Gulf of Corinth gleaming in the distance.


view from Delphi to the Gulf of Corinth
View out to the Gulf of Corinth


The taxi driver dropped me off at a building that looked like it could have been a school (it had been) and I hoped and prayed the museum was open. Fortunately, it was and the docent told me there was a special exhibit on folk costume that I should see. I entered a room on the main floor with about a dozen folk costumes and thought to myself, well, it wasn’t a huge collection, but definitely worth the taxi ride. “Oh, there’s more upstairs,” she casually remarked as she turned to leave.


Folk costume case at Chrisso museum in Greece

As I entered the second floor, I was stunned to discover two large rooms containing cases of over 60 folk costumes from around Greece, all of which were the donation of a private collector who had grown up nearby. It was a thrilling sight! The costumes were from various regions and time periods, but these costumes were grouped by region, and it was so interesting to have so many different styles to study. I spent several delightful hours as the only visitor, roaming around from case to case, studying stylistic differences and various techniques, snapping photos to my heart’s content.


closeup of folk embroidery
closeup of folk embroidery costume Chrisso Greece

When I finished, I made my way to the tiny village square a couple of blocks away and ordered coffee. The owner of the cafeneio spoke no English but was clearly curious why I was there, so I said I was there to study kenthyma (embroidery) and his face lit up, a response I often get in Greece when I explain that I’m studying folk embroidery. Alas, his expression quickly fell when he asked how I liked my coffee and I replied sketo (plain, no sugar). This was clearly a problem and it took me a bit to figure out that he was telling me that plain Greek coffee was a man’s drink and I should order something more womanly!


After my trek to Arachova and Chrisso, I traveled back to Athens where I was delighted to spend a day with a group of Avlea stitchers. We met in an old library and had a wonderful time as I learned their stories of how they had each come to Greece (all of them were ex-pats) and what embroidery they had seen and experienced in their time in Greece. Rachel Pogois shared wonderful photos she had taken in the 1970s when she went to a traditional prika viewing—a display of embroidered and handmade items for a new bride that took place prior to the wedding and was quite the social event! I spent my last couple of days in Athens meeting with our fabric supplier, finding the mastiha candies my kids love, and visiting the National Hellenic Museum (more great folk costume, including the cutest Lego figurines of folk costume!).


group of folk embroidery crafters smiling
folk embroidery gathering in Athens
display of folk embroidery from Greece
prika display from the 1970s
Lego figurine of folk costume
Lego figurine of folk costume--so cute!

It was a jam-packed trip, but so inspiring! I came home with over 700 photos that will provide creative inspiration for many months to come. The trip also re-invigorated my passion for continuing folk embroidery traditions. On this trip I had multiple encounters with people who asked why I was in Greece and when I explained, they told me about their grandmother’s or aunt’s embroideries, or how they watched their mother embroider when they were a child. Taxi drivers, shop keepers, taverna owners would exclaim enthusiastically when I showed them photos of my embroidery to illustrate that I knew folk embroidery. Probably the funniest moment was when I was buying some linen in an ergoxeiro (craft supply shop) in Athens and I held up my Instagram account to show the clerk that I knew how to embroider. “I know,” she responded, “I follow you!” and it was probably one of the best compliments I’ve ever received!


Every day I spent in Greece along with each of these encounters reminded me of the importance of folk embroidery in our lives. I want to celebrate and share the beauty, the vibrance, the connection that this wonderful handcraft gives to us. Whether it’s a gloriously elaborate folk costume or a geometric cushion or a simple little basket cloth with a folk embroidery border, this artform has been with us for centuries providing delight and joy. May it continue through the work of our hands!


woman standing next to Mediterranean sea in Kalamata Greece
me, after my Mediterranean swim!

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