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Thanks for visiting ! Please leave me comments, I love to read what you might think about the boutis (which is also known as "Broderie de Marseille"), please share with me what you have seen, what you love, how-tos, good museums to visit, pattern origins, and so on ..... you get the idea !

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Le Boutis Ouvrage Divin

On Friday, just in time for our lovely long weekend, I received a parcel from Lou   It was a delightful book that I recently read a review of in the Fil Blanc, and know is very hard to get now.  I asked her if she would send me one if she could find it, and honestly, I did not hold out much hope - but, here it is !!  Thank you Lou, I love it.


The book does not have patterns, rather it is a selection of pieces from the author's collection with information about their provenance where available, size, and materials used.  My favorite is a lovely wedding vanne, made by a young girl in Draguignan, who lived in extremely modest circumstances.  Sadly, her fiancé did not return from a war in 1870, and her vanne was put away.  Later in life, due to financial constraints, she was forced to sell the piece to one of the families she worked for as a laundress.  I am not usually a very sentimental person, but I found this story very touching and thought of the sacrifice involved in buying the materials and spending many hours stitching this glorious design, after a long and laborious work day.



I was thrilled to find that I actually have the pattern for this piece in my collection of all things boutis, and so it is now on the list for "someday".  It is large and will be quite a lot of work.



2 comments:

Karen said...

What a lovely testiment to the young woman who had to give up her lovely handwork. It would be lovely to see it made again.

hiromi said...

What a gorgeous design of "raisin" and "vigne" it has. As you say, the story is really touching. In late 19th century, many countries in the world were in the difficult and unstable situations and many women had similar sad stories in the era of war. The wedding vanne is quite beautiful and mournful. Thank you for showing us this vanne.