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Sarah Pedlow was enjoying an artist’s residency in Budapest when a museum visit changed the course of her artwork and her career. In the Ethnographic Museum, displays of traditional clothing and dowry goods from Hungarian villages showed an extraordinary variety of skills. Many of the intricately embroidered pieces spoke to an earlier time—although some had been created not that long ago.
Írásos is worked in red, blue, black, or white, on a heavy neutral background. Photo courtesy of Sarah Pedlow
One type of embroidery, írásos, particularly captured Sarah’s imagination. Using a straightforward open chain stitch in bold, graphic lines, the style was distinctively Hungarian, with Turkish-influenced motifs reflecting the region’s history. Although she didn’t speak Hungarian (a notoriously difficult language) and had no previous background in fiber art, Sarah was drawn to learn more about the embroidery. She eventually made several trips to an ethnically Hungarian region of Romania, where she met some of the few embroiderers still working in the technique and learned the stitch for herself. Within the community, this style is called “written” embroidery, and writing the patterns is respected as a distinct skill.
After years of traveling in the region and studying with traditional embroiderers, Sarah decided to bring others to experience what she had learned. Working with a local guide, she began leading tours to visit the museums, shops in the markets, and learn directly from the villagers who still practice the art daily.
Sarah’s fine-art work has come to incorporate stitching and textiles. Her interest in traditional fiber arts has also grown beyond írásos to include the Arraiolas stitch practiced in Portugal, another destination for her textile tours, and explorations in the embroidery of Estonia, Bulgaria, and Spain—with more destinations capturing her eye.
Our conversation made me eager to pack and needle and thread and go explore the world—you may get textile wanderlust, too.
Links
ThreadWritten website
ThreadWritten Instagram
Sarah’s studio Instagram
Néprajzi Múzeum/Museum of Ethnography, Budapest
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