Today I am returning to Estonia, which I feel that I have neglected. I will talk about the costume and a bit about the wide range of handiwork which is native to Muhumaa, Muhu Island.
Estonia is divided into 15 counties in four regions; Lõuna-Eesti or South Estonia, Põhja-Eesti or North Estonia, Lääne-Eesti or West Estonia, and Saared, the Islands.
Estonian is a Uralic language related to Finnish, and unrelated to the Baltic languages which are spoken in the neighboring countries of Latvia and Lithuania.
Muhumaa is the third largest island in Estonia, located between Saaremaa and the coast. It is shown in red on this map.
The capitol of Estonia is Talinn, and this is their flag.
For more information on Estonia and Muhu island, see these articles:
Muhu island is one of the areas of Estonia in which folk costume and native crafts survived the longest.
The local costume was commonly worn well into the 20th cent. and native handicrafts are still very much alive.
The oldest known costume consists of a chemise and sash. This was worn for work in the fields, especially for cutting hay and harvesting, in which situation more clothing would just have been a hindrance. There also seems to be a ceremonial significance to this costume. Similar costumes were worn in northwest Russia for haying, which had extensive embroidery above the hems, in areas that would not be seen if any outer garments were worn.
This chemise has narrow shoulder pieces with embroidery, embroidered cuffs and collar and a card-woven band sewn onto the hem. There is also a silver ring brooch holding the neck opening closed.
This image also shows one peculiarity of Muhu costume. The sash is also card-woven.
With card weaving, it is difficult to make the product very wide. On Muhu the sash was usually about 1.5 cm wide and very long. In most places sashes for folk costumes are long enough to go around the waist two or three times and then tie or be secured. If you look at the image above, you will see that the Muhu sash encircles the waist many more times. Muhu sashes were usually 6 to 10 meters long. The designs were simple because they are so narrow. Here are a couple of examples, showing both sides. The ends were sometimes finished off with finger braiding; one end was often made into a loop that the other end could be secured in. Garters were made the same way.
Later, both the edging and the woven stripes became more elaborate.
Later the home woven striped wool cloth was sometimes replaced by commercially made cloth, either of a solid color or a print. For a time, the embroidered part was stiffened so that the embroidery would be more visible. This was called 'being under full sail'.
The cap was constucted with a brim and a top, with a hole at the back.
Later a triangular piece was inserted into the hole to make a peak in back. The embriodery shifted more to cross stitch.
Later still, the brimwas made of orange wool cloth with cross-stitch embroidery 'written' on it.
Along with this, some people replaced the long woven sash with a wide black belt, first of leather, and later sometimes of elastic, which is worn with a large brass buckle.
This costume continued as a living tradition into the 20th cent. and continued to develop.
I will write another article to cover that, as this one is already long enoug.
Thank you for reading, i hope that you have found this to be interesting, informative and perhaps inspiring.