miscellaneous | spiritofbelarus

Counted stitch patterns

designed and worked by

Iryna Varabei

Belarusan Motifs

Collection

NAMITKA.
All Stars Are In Our Hands

The pattern is available here.

Namitka is a distinctive married woman's headdress as a part of traditional Belarusan folk dress. It is a long, long thin fabric wrapped around the head and tied in the back. The ends of the fabric are embroidered with traditional motifs in red.

My design features my feelings of wearing the traditional Belarusan costume.
Have you ever worn a traditional costume? What feeling did you have?
When I wear it, I can no longer stand like a weeping willow. Instead, I keep my body straight. And especially, when you have this wrapped thing on your head ..almost a crown.. you can feel just like a queen!
On the other hand… umm… Some people of western cultures could see in this image a hint of an ‘angel’. No, no, no, it’s not that. While designing this image I was thinking about one famous statement in our culture: “What does a bird first do just before taking off? – She becomes proud.”

The subtitle of the piece says, “All Stars Are in Our Hands”. At the top of the picture, we see the ‘falling stars’. Actually, they have an exact shape of some traditional Belarusan symbols. They fall from the sky and lie down on the embroidered pieces, like towel, a namitka and apron, and thus form the traditional sacral motifs.
The leftmost one is Alatyr Star symbolizing Universe. The next one is the Sun. The next to the Sun is a Star of Yaryla god, a son of the Sun. The last one is a symbol of our ancestors who believed that they were leading their race from Yaryla.

The building behind the lady is an image of a typical Belarusan template architecture.
The entire design composition has a story behind it. And if you still have patience to read my scribble I will tell it.
When I first got to the CreativFestival in Toronto (it was in 2004) I saw the works of @Maria Gollek. Those were some pieces from her Mother and Child Series. I was so impressed by the technique they were made with. And I promised myself that I would learn how to stitch this way no matter what. Later, when I made a friendship with Maria, and after I saw the all pieces of the Series – there were Madonnas from all around the world, and there was Ukrainian one, and Russian one … but oops … no Belarusan one. So, I told Maria, “I will do Belarusan Madonna to your Series”. ..Umm, it’s not Madonna yet… (though, Madonna is coming:)

*Materials used: mostly silk, rayon, bamboo, metallic, beads
(all shades of white :) )

Sept. 2018

The pattern is available here.

Zubr Hunting

The pattern is available here.

This is a marvelous story about the remarkable poem, The Song of the Zubr, written in 1522 by Belarusan diplomat Mikola Husoŭski especially for Pope Leo X.

The zubr is the Belarusan name for an animal like American bison, but quite bigger. It has been preserved only in Belarus.

History tells an amazing story of how this came to be.

The Vatican, 1521. Pope Leo X arranges entertainment for his guests: the ambassador from the distant northern country of the Grand Principality of Litva (the medieval Belarus) Bishop Erasm Vitely along with his retinue. Ah, how he wanted to impress the foreigners with this new show—the still-novel Italian corrida!

…But suddenly, someone in the retinue exclaimed: "Wow! It looks just like our zubr hunting!"

That sparked a number of curious questions from the Pope. Mikola from Husaŭ happened to be in the retinue. As the son of a forest warden and a great hunter himself, he began to recount his hunting adventures. He explained that zubr hunting resembled a corrida, but instead of taking place in a ring, it was held directly in the forest. Some daredevils would even face the furious wild animal in single combat. In fact, such events were held as training for soldiership skills.

The amazed Pope asked the ambassador to present him with a stuffed specimen of this odd animal and requested a poem written in verse about it (as was the fashion at the time).

The Bishop immediately sent messengers to Kniaz* Radzivill for a stuffed animal; and Mikola Husoŭski was ordered to write down his entire story on paper and to compose a truly poetic work about the zubr, the country, and the hunts.

The Song Appears ... continued here