PORTUGUESE EMBROIDERY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 64, 12 September 1924, Page 9

PORTUGUESE EMBROIDERY

Portuguefis embroidered linens are little known, despite sundry efforts to popularise them. When displayed, they are usually to be found in shops of an exclusive .type. .An interesting-. account of their manufacture appears in an article in a recent "Embroideress," which attributes, this work to the peasants in "several tiny villages on the northern coast of Portugal." Each peasant in , these villages has a small holding from which lie makes sufficient bread, wine, oil, and linen for his family needs. Ho grows the flax himself, ' which at harvest, is pulled up in handMs, tied into bundles, and 6unk in a rocky mountain stream, under a stone to prevent it from floating away." It then goes-, through the identical processes known to old Egypt, is beaten, combed, and spun by women, is bleached and cleansed m the river again, and is finally woven on a baud loom. The emoroidery done by the peasants, although primarily for their own use, is of a very-^ high artistic order, ac the.beautidcartsli e Ifly. Wnbythenati---