Printed cloth. Patterned weaving
Among the ways of textile decorating a printed cloth is one of the most elementary. A wooden board with an engraved pattern or with cut in metallic plates was used for cloth printing. Square boards 20 x 20 sm in size were made of hardwood. A special composition was spread on such a board and printed on a smooth canvas; then the cloth was put into a big bowl where it was dyed in a deep blue color. The pattern remained uncolored and was notable on the blue background as a delicate graphic drawing. Sometimes the masters printed orange pea-shaped circles over the basic ornament using special stencils that enriched the decorative qualities of the textile. Printed cloth wasn’t regarded as a home handicraft. Dyers who owned small workshops and served the population of the neighborhood villages were occupied with this business. In each workshop there was «uzornik» – many meters long canvas with imprints from all available boards. Such «uzornik» was brought to the local market or fair and one could order a printed cloth with the corresponding ornament. A customer applied a roll of smooth homespun canvas to the number of the pattern and after some time received it in the form of a ready-made cubic printed cloth.
On the territory of Vologda Oblast production of printed cloth was especially developed in the former Nikolsk and Gryazovets districts. Cubic printed cloth was used in production of curtains, tablecloths, aprons, men’s trousers and shirts, women’s summer dresses. In the ornament of the cubic printed cloth vegetable forms prevailed. But these were not concrete plants but relative branches with flowers and leaves, geometrized bushes bearing the sounds of the alive nature in its pictures and gradual bends.
In comparison with a printed cloth a patterned weaving is the most complicated type of textile decorating from the point of view of technology. Its essence is in making an ornament and a patterned structure during the process of weaving. A special device was used for this purpose – a weaver’s loom with strained longwise threads of the warp that were interwoven across by the threads of the weft. An elementary method of textile interweaving was amplified with different improvements. A weaver who couldn’t even spell her name made complicated calculations of threads and their interweaving in different technique of the weaving.
Today a patterned weaving is preserved in the number of municipalities of Vologda Oblast by the old craftswomen. The modern forms of ancient geometric ornament are found in the patterns of the doormats and patchwork.
As opposed to the printed cloth and patterned weaving the embroidery doesn’t need special devices. Everything that can be found at every home – a piece of cloth, threads and needles – is enough. The meaning of embroidery is not only in its pattern on cloth but in creation of the texture richness of its surface embroidered with small stitches-patterns. For this purpose there were a lot of types of stitches with special ways of their version and pattern structure. Some of them were made on the surface of the cloth, other needed a preliminary thread of the needle and creation of a through mesh that was served as a canvas for further embroidery.
Famous Vologda trimming – the sides of bed sheets decorating the festive bed – are done using this method. This broad – up to 2 meters long – cloth is embroidered with amazing multi-figured compositions. In the continuous pattern line there are pictures of fantastic birds and animals, buildings with columns and balustrades along which ladies in crinolines and cavaliers in wigs and sleeveless jackets walk following the fashion of the 18th century. The surface of each figure is filled with geometrical patterns creating a rich play of the embroidered texture. Compact silhouette of pictures contrasts to light through background.
The most preserved embroideries are dated back to 19-20th centuries. But its ornamental pattern is much older than the things on which it is made. The embroidered subjects played an important role in folk rituals and preserved the patterns from different time. There are different types among the patterns of Vologda embroidery: geometrical, vegetable, pictorial, pictures of animals and birds. The most oldest patterns are the geometrical patterns and triple compositions with human figures in the center and horses, riders and birds on the sides. They were embroidered on the sides of towels, aprons, trimmings and hems of shirts. Such grand festive embroideries brought to us the echo of pagan mythology of ancient Slavs. The scientists think that female figures, images of riders and birds were symbols of Nature and its dependent elements of fire, water and air. Such embroideries were always made with red threads on linen using an old 2-sided stitch technology – when the right and left sides are similar. Its pattern is clear, pictures are geometrized with a line rhythm.
In different parts of Vologda Oblast there are different types of embroidery. Their peculiarity becomes apparent in the picture and character of the pattern, technique of embroidery, in the size and color of the pattern and even in the tints of red threads.
Today textile art of the North is changed significantly. It is connected not only with new world-view and wealth of people. The accelerated tempo of life doesn’t leave spare time for laborious female handicrafts. Nevertheless, textile folk art is surviving. If the most laborious handicraft – an embroidery – left in the past, many types of weaving and lace-making obtained new forms of development dictated by the present.