by Bobbin.Threadbare » Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:00 pm
This thread is so great! I've completely missed it up until now! As some of you will already know - I'm really into embroidery and I especially love it when its clearly made by hand, with little errors.
I know this is going to come off as self-promotion but I need to tell it this way for it to make sense: The way we get our embroidery done is through a sort of outreach program we are involved with. A lot of families in India live in quite dire conditions, despite the overall rising economy of the country, with both men and women working. Without daycare, however, some ladies can't work until their children are in school. A wonderful nun in India has opened up her now almost empty nunnery up during the day and teaches ladies how to embroider giving them not only the chance to earn a living but also, as she says is more important, a reason to dress nicely and socialise with other ladies. They also get help with their kids eduction fees etc.
It's wonderful, but their attention to detail is so pin perfect in some cases that you can't even tell it's done by hand. We have had to ask them to copy and look at vintage samples and put a little personal flair in when they make things - which they have taken up now but was an amusing problem to have! They were so worried at the start that they would lose our support if they didn't improve on the samples we gave them.
Here are some images of their work we asked them to make up for us - keep in mind these are tiny! Around the size of a 50p piece.