Iryna Varabei is a proud contributor to
A Needle Pulling Thread magazine,
which features Canadian designers in Needlework Arts.
Counted stitch patterns published in
magazine
“Reason clears and plants the wilderness of the imagination to harvest the wheat of art.”
Austin O'Malley
Harvest Feast
Canvaswork, four-way bargello
My embroidery threads together the story of my country – Belarus. It represents the harvest of the wheat from the cleared land in the forested VALLEY. Farming is what my ancestors did. The whole culture of my people is rooted in agriculture, and all customs and traditions are based on it. All holy days, feasts, and arts are connected to the seasonal calendar, images of rural work and of nature. The Belarusan goes to bed and wakes up with thoughts about his piece of earth. EARTH, in the Belarusian imagination, is a holy spirit whom he appeals to in his prayers. He calls her tenderly Mother-Earth and gives her his best care. He calls her respectfully Bread-winner-Earth in his hope she will pay him back a best HARVEST. The main product of the harvest is BREAD. Bread has a special status in the Belarusian world. We say: “holy bread”, “bread is a beginning of beginnings; is a head of everything”. Bread takes its place at the most precious spot in the house, beside an icon, wrapped in the best EMBROIDERED TOWEL.
The Belarusans worship Yaryla. In our mythology he is a spirit. He brings Spring to our land, unlocking it with a special key. He takes care of sowing, controls growth and provides harvest. He is the most powerful god who governs on the Mother-Earth. Yaryla put a stop to nomadic life and taught people to take for granted what nature gave them, but rather to produce their own crops. By teaching them to cultivate the earth he brought agriculture to mankind.
Belarusan embroidery symbols represent the ancient and current philosophy and knowledge of the world. The key to the Belarusan embroidery is to understand that the geometric designs were originally pictographs to communicate with an illiterate society. Belarusans have preserved ancient Aryan symbolic scripts by stylising them into ornamental stitchery.
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The symbols used in my embroidery are the following:
A ‘rag’ is a traditional way to fulfill both a prayer about harvest and gratitude to the Mother-Earth. In my Harvest Feast Rag I transformed the symbols traditionally done in cross-stitch into a new bargello-style technique which I created myself.
1 1a 2 2a 3 3a
1. Spirit (god) of Harvest: “Jitsen” derived from the word “life”
1a. My version of Jitsen -- Spirit of Harvest.
2. Spike of wheat or rye.
2a. Spirit (god) of harvest, whose Belarusan name sounds like “Rye”.
The symbol is usually framed with a garland-like pattern. Which, I did, too: in Harvest Feast, it is green.
3. The horn is the ancient symbol of wealth and goodness. Its meaning originated from when cattle served as currency.
3a. One of the ways to stylize the image of horns.
Belarusans believe “While your hands are stitching, your heart communes with God.
Stitched symbols are a way to communicate with the spiritual realm.”
Belarusan Motifs
Collection
Counted stitch patterns
designed and worked by
Iryna Varabei