Palestinian Embroidery Fabric
In today’s blog, we will be talking about the fabric used in Palestinian Embroidery. Of course this is a huge topic to talk about but I will try to summarize as much as possible. I will start by Briefly talking about what they used in the past, and then focus on the fabric used currently by Palestinian women.
Most of the old Palestinian dresses in the past (mid nineteenth century to early twenties) were made of cotton, linen, woven, and silk fabrics. Those fabrics were either imported or made locally. The imported fabrics were imported from countries like Egypt, Syria, and Britain, but were very expensive and thus very hard to afford by poor and middle class families. That’s why the majority of fabric at that time were manufactured locally in villages and cities like Mejdel( one of the biggest weaving center ), Safad, Nazareth, Ramallah, Beit-Jala, Bethlehem, Galilee, Gaza and Hebron. During the British mandate, the local fabric industry declined hugely and the imported fabrics became more popular. Especially those fabrics that were imported from Europe. Some fabrics still were imported from Egypt and Syria but eventually also these fabrics became more expensive to get compared the the ones imported from Europe.
As for the colors, it depends on the area. For examples, areas like Ramallah and Jaffa used mostly white/Cream colors for their dresses, while other areas used black/ dark indigo for their dresses. Veils colors were mostly white except in Bedouins areas they used black veils. Most of the fabric from that time were open weave fabrics, so it was easy to stitch on it directly.
And that’s my quick Palestinian embroidery fabric history lesson, let’s jump quickly now to the current fabrics and colors used. Most of the fabrics used in making dresses now are imported with different colors, and usually are not open weave. That’s why women use another fabric called waste canvas with it to help them stitch over it easily. As for household items like pillows or table cloths, etc. Women use Aida fabric, even weave or linen, and we will talk about these below.
Aida Fabric
Aida fabric is imported.
It’s an open weave fabric and thus so easy to stitch on it.
It’s usually 100% cotton.
Each fabric has a count number. The Count is a number that defines the number of stitches that we can create in 1 inch of the fabric. For example, Aida fabric count 14 means you can create 14 stitches in 1 inch of that fabric, Aida fabric count 11 means you can create 11 stitches in 1 inch of that fabric and so on. Aida Fabric currently available in many count numbers like 8, 11, 14, 16, 18, 22, etc. In Palestine the most used ones are Aida fabrics count number 11 and 14.
It’s available in many different colors, and some are hand dyed as well. The colors white, beige and black are the most common ones in Palestine.
You can buy it in yards or previously cut pieces (in certain sizes).
In Palestine, this fabric is mostly used for household items, like pillow covers, wall hanging, coasters, etc., or for accessories like wallets, necklaces, etc.
EvenWeave
Open weave.
It has higher counts than Aida, like 25, 28, 32.
Typically mix of cotton and rayon, like Lugana and Jobelan.
Linen
Open weave.
It has high counts, like 28, 32, and even higher counts like 40, and 50.
Have a natural irregularities throughout the weave of the fabric, which makes it more challenging to stitch on.
Linen has a softer drape.
Manufacturers like Zweigart, and Wichelt are known for their linen fabrics.
Waste Canvas
This is a fabric that look like Aida fabric but it’s not! It’s made in such a way that it makes it easy to pull it’s threads when you are done working.
Mostly used to help stitching on fabrics that are hard to stitch directly on or not open weave fabrics.
When we are done stitching, we can remove waste canvas’s threads by pulling it one by one.
Available in counts: 8, 8.5, 9, 10, 14.
This is everything for today’s blog. For Arabic speakers, I already talked about this topic in a previous video in my channel (Roba Yusuf) , and you can check it out if you want here:
I’ll talk about fabric specifically used in Palestinian traditional dresses in a future post. I hope you found this post a little helpful. Feel free to leave your comments and opinions in the comments section below, and I’ll see in the next one <3.
