The traditional forgotten craft of hand embroidery

Embroidery – a word so weighty with nostalgia. It is so weighty that I fear it will rip through the pages of this newspaper and land with a musty thud on your lap.

Say it again, this time slowly, notice how it bops around the mouth. Embroidery takes me back to primary school in the 1990s. I am a child of the early 80s.

I studied under the 8-4-4 system in a public primary school in the city. The school still stands but, like most public primary schools, it has lost its vibrant glory.

Anyway, embroidery takes me back to those tablemats they made us sew in our home science class in standard four, when we had our first spoonful of those involving sewing projects that required you buy fabric, threads and needles, and kegs of patience.

THIMBLE

Oh, and a thimble. Goodness, the thimble. Honourable mention to the thimble. Weren’t they just dandy, those stainless steel thimbles, cool to the touch with their ribbed bottoms and solid build?

The tablecloths they had us sew were decorated with some special type of embroidery thread. The threads came in bold primary colours. Mostly.

The stitches for embroidery were also of a special kind. There were stitches for the flowers in the centre of the table mat – back stitch, stem stitch, chain stitch, satin stitch – and others for the border of the table mat; either feather stitch or blanket stitch.

The more adventurous of us went for the herringbone stitch. (Just so you know, I have looked up on Google for a refresher of these stitches.)

The government eventually killed off home science – and the poor thimble – but now I hear they are returning it under the new Matiang’i/competency-based curriculum.

Not particularly home science but some degree of creativity and craftsmanship, having our kids make beautiful things with their beautiful hands. More on that another day.

I had not given mind to the age-old craft of embroidery until today, when I sighted some handiwork on the denim jacket I am wearing. I bought it for a steal from the street hawkers downtown, the ones that set up shop in the fading light of the urban setting sun. The jacket is a washed out blue. Stylishly distressed at the back.

ANARCHY

It has the sleeves ripped off, giving me the vibe of a biker in an anarchy wasteland. Or a good girl gone bad. On the worst day, I look like I could knife you if you owed me a loose couple of gees. On the best day, I appear as a rock artist recording an independent album in a dingy corner of my studio apartment.

Anyway, what softens the rough edges of this denim jacket is the embroidery work on its lapels. I had not noticed it before giving this much thought to embroidery. The lapels have been embroidered using sequins, crystals and beads. The hand that embroidered them is shaky and uneven but the sentiments and personality behind the stitching cover up for this shortcoming.

This is not the work of a Kenyan, I’ll tell you that. We Kenyans associate embroidery with home science, and by extension, something they made us do in school.

ACADEMIC PURSUIT

Embroidery is an academic pursuit. Folk in the West approach it as an artistic pursuit. It is not a traditional art but a modern craft, which borrows from these age-old stitch work and incorporates other materials such as quills, gold studs, bones, canvas, dried legumes, leather off cuts, ... just about any malleable material can be embroidered to a piece of apparel.

And they don’t limit themselves to apparel, they have stretched their imagination to their Converse sneakers, sandals, hand cuffs and coasters. You draw the boundaries of your playground.

Granted, embroidering is a time-consuming activity that could easily turn from therapeutic to frustrating with the prick of a needle, but it is a cost-effective way to stamp your personality on those items you have a sentimental attachment to.

I’m thinking I would embroider more if I wasn’t so nostalgic about the word. And while at it, spend more time with thimbles.