Goddess Embroideries of the Balkan Lands and the Greek Islands

Linked by the Black and Aegean seas, the lands of Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece are also united by their strong ritual embroidery traditions. In a similar format to her earlier book, Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe,the author recounts Bulgarian women's folk rituals and links them to goddess motifs on their textiles. She displays nineteenth century Carpathian motifs and documents their survival today in mountain villages. Traveling south, she visits the Greek islands and mainland, studying survivals of pagan culture and the folk motifs on ritual cloths and clothing. Techniques, colors, designs, origins and rituals as well as interviews with the folk artists who created goddess textiles; this volume weaves all these elements into the story of women's age-old textile traditions in the Greek and Balkan world.