In 2012 on a trip to New York I visited the "Little Ukraine" section of NYC. One of the spots I visited was the Surma Book and Music Co. where I purchased some really lovely stuff including a book of Ukrainian Rose needlework patterns. Surma has since closed it's doors and I had stashed away the needlework book, but with all that's been going on in Ukraine I pulled it out and started on one of the patterns.
The first page of this book has a lovely preface that gives the background on Ukrainian Rose Patterns. It notes that The Rose is a symbol of love and has been used as embroidered embellishment of women's shirts for years.
The book details how 100 women's shirts with rose embroidery arrived in Surma, and one of the salespersons recalled her youth in Ukraine where she embroidered her own shirt.
"I recall the sweet scent of the blue-flowered flax, and the sound of threshing in the village. And the warm cottages on cold winter nights where girls gathered to spin the flax into yarn, to weave the yarn into cloth, to talk about a secret love, to sing, and to dream quietly on their own...And then, on summer evenings, after a day's work done in the fields, the girls gathered again. This time it was to embroider and sew, to complete the work, to fill their hope chests with embroidered towels pillows, and shirts."
(From Surma Book & Music Co., Ukrainian Rose Patterns, (1981))
I'm contemplating all of the beautiful history, the traditions, the art and the people of Ukraine and hoping for a swift end to the trauma that this country and it's people are currently enduring.