Women’s needlework – cross stitch embroidery

In Women’s needlework workshop, you can learn more about the various embroidery techniques (cross stitch, chain stitch, stem stitch and others) used in nurseries and primary schools of the nineteenth and twentieth century. In nineteenth-century lower and higher primary school, and later also in secondary school, girls had the subject entitled Women’s needlework. In the first and second form of lower primary school, women’s needlework was also taught to boys. Everyone had to know how to stitch on a button, how to darn a sock or make a cross-stitch motif because the children needed to apply that knowledge in real life. On bases of home-made linen, they embroidered by cross stitching models of various motifs: letters of the alphabet, numbers, twigs, baskets, flowers, vases, various geometrical shapes, wreaths and similar. The pedagogical significance of needlework as a means of presentation and expression was stressed as an aid in the development of diligence, precision, thoroughness, creativity, sense of beauty. Playing with needle and thread, we develop an appreciation for beauty and practice orderliness and patience. The participants of the Women’s needlework workshop will learn the basics of embroidery (applying cross or basic stitches to linen to create given motifs). The amazing works of primary school pupils can be seen in our permanent exhibition, in an exhibition unit entitled Women’s needlework.

Duration: 45 minutes

Participants: elementary school pupils from 2nd to 8th form, secondary school pupils, adults.