Antique costumes from the Balkan

The sleeveless vests you see here belonged to Stojan's grandparents, who wore it in their young years for special occasions.

The first one is a woman's vest, the support is from  thick wool, and in the back is covered with heavy linenthreads. The front parts have some heavy embroidery. 

The red vestwas

the men's. Allthough the color may seem pink, it's a deep deep turkeyred and the finish is black braid

A part of the waistband, made by my mother in law, and the silver buckle, it'all fragile and brittle now and stored in boxes.

The last item is a 1 meter long snake made from pearls, used around a girl's hand while dancing the kolo on sunday afternoons and weddings, sadly very brittle too and broken in two pieces.

The family comes from the village of Kuceviste, about 10 miles outside of Skopje in Macedonia, close to the Serbian border. Stojan was responsable for an enormous herd of sheep at the age of eleven, and asked his grandfather if he was allowed to go back to school.

He finished finally high school and went to Art College afterwards and came to France in the late sixties. Copared to him, i grew up in wealth, that means that my family lived under normal surcomtances......

You may ask me what i did in 5 week where i was so silent:  i did a lot of handquilting for other people and i managed to make some blocks for