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TEACHING UKRAINIAN EMBROIDERY Recently OUR LIFE received a letter from Oksana Moshinsky of Denver, Colorado who wrote about a woman she had met, a non-Ukrainian, who was a teacher of Ukrainian embroidery. The woman’s name is Jan Walters and she lives in Montana. They met, according to O. Moshinsky, when Jan Walters called her to ask permission to use embroidery samples from the book “Ukrainian Embroideries” which Ms. Moshinsky had written some time ago. Ms. Walters also asked Ms. Moshinsky to assist at a seminar where she was to teach the traditional Ukrainian embroidery stitch yavorivka. The surprise came when the two women met face to face and Ms. Moshinsky learned that Jan Walters was not Ukrainian, nor did she have a Ukrainian background. Ms. Moshinsky was overwhelmed by the expertise and knowledge of traditional Ukrainian embroidery exhibited by Jan Walters, and marveled at the magnificent exam ples of her work. She also felt that an individual such as Ms. Walters, who has so thoroughly mastered the intric acies of stitching techniques, the myriad of designs and the subtlety of coloration of Ukrainian embroidery to the point where she is a qualified teacher of the craft, needs to be introduced to a broader Ukrainian commun ity and given recognition for her work. Ms. Moshinsky’s letter was accompanied by a short writeup in which Jan Walters speaks about herself, how she became acquainted with Ukrainian embroidery and how her love of the craft allowed her to develop a rich and interesting career. Hence, let us meet Jan Walters: “The first question people usually ask me is if I am Ukrainian. The answer is no. I’m predominantly Scot tish, Irish, English, and Dutch, with a bit of everything else thrown in for good measure. I was first exposed to Ukrainian embroidery in 1970 in Berkeley, CA, when I took a class at the “Free Univer sity.” The Free University was an experimental program where anyone wishing to teach something would sche dule a time and place, and anyone wishing to learn that subject would just show up. There were no salaries, fees, or official registrations. I had never seen Ukrainian embroidery and was expecting the large, splashy, brilliantly colored floral embroidery one finds on East European vests and aprons. Instead, I was confronted with counted cross stitch for the first time. I can remember feeling disap pointed after the first lesson, but determined to give it a try. By the second lesson I was a confirmed thread counter and had begun what was to become a life-long study of Ukrainian and other ethnic embroideries. My teacher was a young Ukrainian woman from Chicago named Laura. She had been taught how to em broider by her mother and grandmother, and was teach ing us a cross stitch technique that had been handed At the "Yavorivka Seminar" in Boulder, CO. Jan Walters and Oksana Moshinsky. down in her family. She only taught us the cross stitch and the back stitch. Laura did have some very old patt ern books (“Nova Chata” publications from the 1930s, all in Ukrainian and German) that I borrowed from her. A friend made photocopies for me and I colored in some of the patterns that interested me. I freely changed the colors to suit my taste and this has plagued me for years. Of course, at that time I had no idea I’d be teach ing Ukrainian embroidery someday, and that I would want to know the authentic colors. Laura’s class was the first and only direct class I’ve ever taken (I have since taken several correspondence classes through the Embroiderer’s Guild of America). From that point I was self-taught from books. I started buying every book on embroidery I could find, espe cially ethnic embroidery books. I now have an ever- expanding collection of over 400 titles, and these have been my instructors for over 20 years. By age 22 I was teaching embroidery and needle point classes through Adult Ed wherever I lived. In 1977 I received a California Adult Education Teaching Certif icate in embroidery and needlepoint. All during this time, while exploring every type of embroidery I came across, I kept returning to Ukrainian embroidery as my first love. Whenever I wanted to work on a project for myself, it was usually Ukrainian embroidery. By the early 1980s I realized that what Laura had taught me was something special, not found in the Ukrainian embroidery books I had collected. I also dis covered that the cross stitch accounted for only a small part of the Ukrainian embroiderer’s repertory. I began a serious study of Ukraine and its embroidery. Upon joining the Embroiderer’s Guild of America I decided to share what I knew with a wider audience. The “Beginning Ukrainian Embroidery” group correspon dence course was released in the spring of 1991 and has been taken by approximately 1,200 students to date. The course teaches Laura’s method of doing the cross 24 НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИПЕНЬ-СЕРПЕНЬ 1993 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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