No stitching updates but I'm trying to get my posting mojo back...I've posted on this topic before but thought I'd share an update with you. You may have noticed a new tab at the top of my blog labelled "Hövej Embroidery". If you haven't had a chance to look at it, please do - there are some beautiful pictures there.
Ellen Chester is always looking for interesting stories for her newsletter, With My Needle and Pen - if you don't subscribe to it, you should -- it's free for the asking! A few months ago I submitted an article about the I Sigh Not for Beauty sampler that I was working on. I thought I'd write something again and decided to share my story about the embroidery of
Hövej. If you'd like to read the entire newsletter, you will find it here:
With My Needle and Pen Volume 16, Issue 7
In writing the article, I discovered a new website dedicated to this beautiful white on white embroidery. It's a feast for the eyes and I encourage you to visit it:
http://www.szigethyistvanne.hu/Products_en.html
Long story short, I started corresponding with the daughter of the woman who has done all of the beautiful embroidery featured on this website. We've exchanged quite a few emails and I've learned more things about this embroidery that at one time was a mystery to me! More on that in a future post, but today, I'd like to share with you the story I shared with Ellen for her newsletter.
The Embroidery of Hövej
My maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States in
the early 1900’s. Both came from tiny
villages locates in what at the time was known as Austria-Hungary. After the monarchy collapsed in 1918, these
villages became part of Austria.
Despite the long distance between them and the challenges
with communicating during two world wars, the families kept in touch. After my grandparents passed away, the
responsibility of maintaining contact with the relatives in Austria fell to
their eldest daughter, my aunt; and after she passed away, that responsibility
was passed on to my mother.
In 1977, my mother decided that it was time to take a trip
to Europe to visit our relatives. A
handful of the cousins from my grandfather’s side of the family had visited us
in the U.S., but otherwise only written communication bound us together. We spent about 10 days visiting with cousins
on both sides of the family; in fact, we even discovered that my mother still
had a living uncle! I was in high
school at the time and had no idea how profound an impact this trip would have
on the rest of my life.
Now I realize you were anticipating an article about
embroidery. However, please indulge me a
bit further for it is through my search for ancestors that I discovered the
beautiful embroidery of Hövej!
While in college, I returned to this place in Austria called
Burgenland, the birthplace of my grandparents, and got to know our relatives
there better. Life then got busy (job,
marriage, children) and it was 15 years before I would return again. In 1997, when
visiting with my grandmother’s side of the family, the cousins presented me
with a gift – a beautiful white on white hand-embroidered tablecloth. It was stunning. I had no idea how significant this piece of
embroidery was.
It was at about this time that I wanted to know more about
my grandfather’s family. Some documents
that I had obtained indicated that my great-grandfather and one of his brothers
originally came from the village of Hövej, located across the border in
Hungary. It became my mission to try to
see what I could learn about the ancestors that once lived in Hövej.
My mother was actually the first to visit Hövej. She was visiting our cousins in 1998 and
expressed interest in going there. The
cousins (on her mother’s side) were more than happy to oblige. They told my mother that they could also
visit the “lace ladies” in Hövej. One of
our cousins had a connection to some ladies that made lace. The cousins bought lace for their homes and
had special pieces embroidered for the altar at the church in their
village. Visiting the lace ladies was a
bit challenging; our cousins only spoke German and the lace ladies only spoke
Hungarian. Arrangements were made for a
translator who could assist with communications! During this first visit, my mother was
invited into the home of one of these ladies to admire her work and the work of
one of her sisters. Of course, it was
possible to purchase whatever one wanted.
The lace that these ladies made was the same lace that adorned the
beautiful white hand-embroidered tablecloth that I had received a year earlier! When my mother returned a couple years later,
she and her cousins once again visited the lace ladies.
As for me, another 15 years passed before I would be able to
visit this part of the world again. Last
summer my mother and I made another trip to Burgenland; it was important to me
that we share this experience together at least one more time. This would also be my first opportunity to
travel to Hövej and of course I wanted to visit the lace ladies!
The visit proved challenging. The woman that could speak both German and
Hungarian had passed away a few months earlier.
Fortunately, one of the lace ladies knew of a young girl, just 14 years
old, who was in town visiting her grandmother.
The young girl could speak German, Hungarian, and English and so she
came and helped translate.
The embroidery was stunning; white on white, very similar to
cutwork and yet very different. The
fabric used was mostly cotton, but there were also some very fine pieces done
on fabric like batiste or organza. The
embroidered circles were filled with different patterns; the designs look like
very fine knitting. The two ladies we
visited with proudly displayed their pieces for sale – mostly doilies in a
variety of sizes. Some were fairly
simple, others were very detailed.
According to a Hungarian website, the Embroidery of Hövej
became world-famous in 1962 at the Expo of Brussels. It describes the embroidery as being “full of
holes” and made on “flimsy material.”
The holes are then filled with different knitting patterns. This embroidery is used to adorn blouses,
aprons, handkerchiefs, tablecloths, bed-covers, and altar-cloths.
I wanted to understand how the doilies were made and one of
the women went inside her home and brought out a wood frame with her current
work-in-progress. The cotton fabric was
stretched tightly to the frame. The
design had been drawn by hand with a pencil on the white fabric. The outer border of “holes” had been stitched
in place; now she was working on the inner circles. I would imagine that the knitting stitches
that fill the circles are worked last. I
told the ladies (through my young translator) that I was going to come back
next year so that they could show me how to do this. They laughed and said that I would have to
learn Hungarian first. (They laughed
because it is almost impossible to learn Hungarian!) I also
wanted to know how this “art” was being preserved; they assured me that many in
Hövej know how to do the embroidery and that it continues to be passed from one
generation to the next.
My goal to visit the village of Hövej and see the place
where my maternal grandfather’s ancestors came from was achieved. The added bonus was discovering its beautiful
embroidery. Sometimes treasures are
found in the most unexpected places! I
hope you have enjoyed my story.
