Inset embroidery on men's shirts from Turka District, Boiko Region, Ukraine

Hello all, 
I received a request for embroidery designs for the insets of men's shirts from the Boiko region. While you will occasionally find embroidery on the sleeves or shoulders of men's shirts in Ukraine, this is the exception rather than the rule. In the Turka region, it is quite common. The image above shows two examples, the shoulder inset and the upper sleeve having been cut from the original shirt for collecting. This is a deplorable action which was common in the past, 
and museums are filled with them, but at least  we have  a record of the embroidery.
The colors used are typical of Boiko embroidery, but there was a lot of variation. Often the embroidery, as here, was reduced to just a frame, but other examles exist, both simpler and more complex. 
See my other two articles on the subject:
http://folkcostume.blogspot.com/2011/05/orest-and-cheryls-wedding-costume-boiko.html

http://folkcostume.blogspot.com/2011/05/examples-of-costume-and-embroidery-of.html

In this article I will simply present graphs of men's shirt embroidery which were published by Krawchuk in the book 'Embroidery of L'viw Oblast'. Do not take the printed colors too literally, the printers had limited choices  in ink colors.

Plate 1
Man's wedding shirt, Town of Turka.This is the one I used for Orest's wedding shirt, see the link above. The dark zigzag motifs in this and many of the following charts represent joining stitches between different fields of cloth, usually between the shoulder inset and the sleeve, and in this case, also between the inset and the body of the shirt.

 

 Plate 6
Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka

 

Inset [ustawka] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka

Inset [ustawka] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 Inset [ustawka] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 

 Inset [ustawka] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 

Plate 7. 
Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka

Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 

Inset [ustawka ]of a shirt. Town of Turka.

 

Inset [ustawka] of a shirt. Town of Turka

 

Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 

 

  Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

Inset [ustawka] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 

Inset [ustawka] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 

Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka. [this is the corner of a fold-down collar] The red zigzags in this and the following image are lengthwise darning stitch. zavolikannia, or perhaps brick stitch.

 

'Shoulder piece' [pryramok] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 

Embroidery on a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

Shoulder piece [pryramok] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

Detail of a cuff. Town of Turka.

Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

Shoulder  piece [pryramok] of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

 

 Collar of a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

Detail of the embroidery on a man's shirt. Town of Turka.

I do not know if ustawka and pryramok are different things; I suspect they are just different terms for the same piece. 

The herringbone stitch in the above graphs is done with a thin thread on homespun linen or hemp, which has thick  ground threads. The result looks like this.

Here is another Boiko shirt which is rather different. I do not know exactly which region it is from, but it is more similar to the men's shirts of the Drohobych/Medenyck region, which is often also considered to be Boiko.

Thank you for reading, I hope that you have found this interesting and informative.

Roman K.

email: rkozakand@aol.com

Source Material:
 L. Krawchuk, 'Ukrajinski Narodni Vyshywky L'viws'ka Oblast' [Ukrainian Folk Embroidery of Lviw Oblast], Kyjiw [Kiev] 1961

More on the costume and embroideryl from Sokal' region, Ukraine

 

 Hello all, 

I recently received a request for information from the Sokal' region of Ukraine. This is in the north of the L'viw region, but also overlaps north into the Volyn' region and west over the present border into the Hrubieszow  region of Poland. I have already written two articles about this region;

http://folkcostume.blogspot.com/2011/04/costume-of-sokal-county-halychyna.html 

http://folkcostume.blogspot.com/2011/04/embroidery-of-sokal-region-halychyna.html 

 but in my earlier posts I felt constrained as to the amount of material which I should put into an article, whereas more recently I have realized that there is really no reason to restrict the amount of material given. The embroidery in this region is typically all black, at least on clothing, although in more recent years there has been a tendency to add color to the designs, as in the example above. Take a look at my other two articles. In this one i shall simply give more examples of the embroidery and the clothing.

The following charts are from 'Embroidery of L'viw Oblast' by L. Krawchuk.

 

Here are some schematics of womens' shirts from this region.These sketches and the following drawings of embroidery are from 'Flowering Folk Art' by O. Kul'chytska.

 This is a man's wedding shirt.

More embroidery designs.

Various photos  of women's clothing from this region. These  images  were taken in a museum in Ukraine.

These images are taken from the publication 'The Preservation of a Heritage' put out by The Ukrainian Museum in New York.

Some pictures from other sources

 

Here is some material from north of the border in Volyn' Oblast, Ivanychiv and Horokhiv districts. There are, in fact, some people who argue that the Sokal' region should be considered part of Volyn' rather than Haychyna. Some of the skirts and aprons shown here are actually from further north or east.

Here is some material from the Polish side of the current border.

 Here are some examples of men's clothing.

On the left is a woman's shirt and on the right is a man's shirt.

The sash on this mannequin is from Podillia or Bukovyna, not Sokal'

 

Thank you for reading, I hope that you have found this interesting, informative and perhaps inspiring. This type of embroidery could be used for many things

Source Material:

L. Burachynska,  'Embroidery Designs Sokalschyna', Nashe Zhyttia, New York, 1980
Lesia Danchenko, 'Ukrainian Folk Art', Leningrad, 1982
Tetiana Kara-Vasylieva, 'Ukrajins'ka Vyshywka' [Ukrainian Embroidery], Kyjiw [Kiev], 1993
L. Krawchuk, 'Ukrajinski Narodni Vyshywky L'viws'ka Oblast' [Ukrainian Folk Embroidery of Lviw Oblast], Kyjiw [Kiev] 1961

Kashybynsky and Wolynetz, 'The Preservation of a Heritage - The village of Uhryniw of the Sokal' Region', New York, 1997

K. Matejko, 'Ukrajinskyj Narodnyj Odiah' [Ukrainian Folk Clothing], Kyjiw [Kiev], 1977

Odarchenko & Carynnyk, 'Ukrainian Folk Costume', Toronto, 1992

I. Hurhula, 'Narodne Mystetsvo Zakhidnykh Oblastej Ukraijiny' [Folk Art of the Western Oblasts of Ukraine], Kyjiw [Kiev], 1966

O. Kul'chytska, 'Kvituche Narodne Mystetsvo' [Flowering Folk Art -Folk Art of the Sokal' region], Lviw,1964 

S. H. Kolosa, I. V. Hurhula et al, 'Ukrajinske Narodne Mystetsvo, Vbrannia' [Ukrainain Folk Art, Clothing], Kyjiw [Kiev], 1961

O. Kul'chytska, 'Folk Costumes of the Western Regions of the Ukrainian SSR, 1959
Elzbieta Piskorz-Branelowa, 'Polskie Stroje Ludowe - tom 3' [Polish Folk Costumes, vol 3.  a description of Folk costumes worn on Polish Territory] Warsaw, 2007
Stanislaw Gadomski, 'Stroj Ludowe w Polsce' [Folk Costume in Poland], Warsaw