Traditional Polish Embroidery

When I was a child, my grandmother had the greatest things like velvet slippers with all sorts of embroidery all over the tops with beautiful floss, sequins and beads.  There is something so beautiful to me, about the look of black velvet with all the shimmer on the surface.  The slippers she had worn were from Poland and the beauty of this look has stayed with me for all these years.

This type of embroidery was done on slippers and was a focal point of the traditional vests or corsets worn throughout the various regions of Poland.  I will post a couple of photos I had seen on-line.  The five and six petal floral motif is very popular as well as the images of sunflowers.

Another form of popular stitching or ornamentation would be cutwork.  This is where white fabric is sewn over with heavier white thread and the negative areas is then cut away with very sharp and pointed scissors.  This was used to decorate the edges or cuffs on shirts as well as the front sections.  Linens and pillow cases were decorated or made like this as well.  It's so beautiful and must have taken hours and hours to do this work.  The front of the blouse in the first photo has cutwork on the front.

A very traditional look would be a white embroidered long sleeve shirt, an embroidered velvet corset or vest and strands of coral beads have always been popular.  The strands of coral beads which many times were worn in three tiers, were cherished and handed down from generation to generation.  If a woman from what we called "The Old Country" had some of these, it was really something special.

The skirts were sometimes striped and longer in length.  There are over thirty different regions with a variety of traditional dress in Poland from what I've read.  Each region would use various and different fabrics and decorations for the clothing of men as well as women.  I believe the look of the garments in these photos would have been from the south and they are such beautiful works of art.