Oaxacan Embroidery

Greetings from sunny San Carlos, in the beautiful Mexican state of Sonora...

What a small world it is! One of my co-attendees of the yearly Point Bonita quilt retreat has a condo in the same small enclave where ours is (which actually belongs to my father-in-law). And she is here this week.

Meet Leigh Hay-Martin....

Leigh lives with her husband in Jerome, Arizona. She stays down here in San Carlos for several months each year.
Her quilt on the couch fits so well with the Mexican textiles, don't you think?
She's a fine quilter, and has a nice little set-up in their condo for that.

Of course that is one of Leigh's quilts on the bed.

Leigh and her husband, Richard, spent a week in Oaxaca over Christmas. While there, she purchased some vintage and new textiles that feature the traditional embroidery of the region. They are so lovely that I thought you would enjoy seeing them.

I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves, as I don't know enough about these to give much information. But I can say this is worked in cotton on velvet, by hand, and is a satin stitch. The black showing is the velvet background fabric.

Here is a detail.

The second piece.....

...is also quite old, and worked on a mellow wine-colored velvet.

There are more....

...amazing, isn't it?

Here is a detail....

...and below is how it looks from the back....

...There is a backing fabric, no batting. One thing I find so impressive is the total lack of distortion normally caused by such intensive stitching.

The next piece is contemporary, and shows the entire outfit.

These are worn in religious processions.

Here's a close up...the stitching is a little different.

This is all chain stitched...and maybe done with a tambour hook?
From the back it looks like this....

Maybe one of you can tell me how this was done...

Leigh's husband bought her this magnificent vintage outfit for Christmas....

The way the flowers change scale just enchants me...
The lace is stiff and pleated...

I think Leigh said the lace is from England.

She has a book about all this and I've taken some pictures so you can see these costumes as they are meant to be worn....

Surely she is one of the most beautiful maidens I have ever seen.
Two more images from this book follow...

Imagine how it would feel, to be part of this!
And this.....

I would love to travel to Oaxaca one day to experience this in person.

In the meantime, the sisterhood of the needle and the spirit brings all of us together...