There is a lot of entertaining and fascinating stories in my handmade life. So I decided to share some of them with you?! So, story number 1. "Bargello".

I saw this embroidery for the first time more than 30 years ago, in the late 80s. Ordinary people didn't have an acces to the Internet then (today it is hard to imagine), and we have compiled information from books, magazines, communication... in short, everybody did their best.

And one day I brought a 1902 edition of the book (reissued) "The Course of Women's Needlework". This book was published before the revolution. There is still letter "Ъ" at the end of words, and other pleasures... Reading such a book is funny, but you get into it quite quickly. There is another interesting thing — the title page says that this course is recommended for all women's educational institutions of the Department of institutions of Empress Maria. This encyclopaedia is... for teachers' libraries. That's it — and therefore, for me (joking:)) At that time I was already teaching knitting (knitting needles, crochet hooks), weaving, macrame and embroidery.

But let's go back to our story. I was given this book just for 2 days. That's all! 2 days... I forgot about everything and plunged into this material. And that's when (in this book) I first saw a word "Hungarian embroidery". Just Hungarian embroidery... not Bargello, not Florentine embroidery, but Hungarian. Let's go to the Internet — here's an excerpt:

"It is possible that the style comes from Hungary. Some embroidery, which is now called Florence, dated about 1380, was kept by Hungarian princes Jadwiga.

There are many legends about the appearance of Bargello. One of them says that the Hungarian Princess was marrying the heir of the Medici family. She brought a beautifully embroidered dowry. The embroidery attracted the attention of the Florentine court and influenced the style of their works.

Florentine women began to copy the "flames", and soon began to think that was their creation. In another version this embroidery was brought to Perugia by Queen Gisela (969-1038 years), the wife of the Hungarian king Stephen I."

As you can see, this story is wrapped in mystery. But let's go back to my story — I managed to sketch a diagram from this amazing book with colored pencils (it is a countable embroidery, so it was easy to draw). Thus, my passion for embroidery with a length of 20 years began.

The first several works I made were in a classic style, and then I started to make what I wanted — I'm an artist, not a craftsman. I made more than 20 large works of my own (up to a meter in width, in length). Some of these works have been exhibited abroad (Turkey, Tunisia, Germany). At the time in order to be sent to an exhibition your works had to be chosen by the Union of Artists, through a complex system of competition. That was very hard. Today everything is much simpler — pay and take your work wherever you want, in any part of the globe. It's an exciting time when there is so much information available, you just have to work on yourself everyday to improve your skills.

I can't show my works. That's a spin :) So here are pictures from the Internet. For inspiration.

Create, go for it! Life's too short to repeat the work of others — create your own! And it doesn't matter how it's called — Hungarian embroidery, Bargello, Florentine embroidery... that's not so important. Leave mystery for history.

In a few days, I will prepare and publish the second part of this article. Subscribe, my friends, and you will be informed! Thank you in advance for your feedback and comments!