Drawn, Pulled, Hardanger, Whitework, All The Names For The Embroidery Technique Of The Hankies In My Latest Hankie Quilt

I want to thank all of you who answered my request for information on the kind of needlework that created the hankies I am making my latest Hankie quilt with.

I received lots of information and a few different  names for the type of needlework.  I have no doubt they are all correct.  Meaning that people from different places have their own names for them.

Marilyn… “Pulled” embroidery

Lynn…. “Hardanger, a Norwegian whitework embroidery technique.”

Rags… “Drawn” needle work, which includes hemstitching and needlelace.” The techniques are historical and can be found on embroidery samplers as far back as the 17th century.”

Sharon…her grandmother called it “Drawn’ needle work.  She has “a very special piece” that her grandmother made for her.

Susan wrote…. “my mother called it *drawn thread art*..it was a technique she learned as a young girl in Europe while growing up….(when girls were expected to learn all the domestic arts)…..  she did show and demonstrate to me when I was a young girl….but she didn’t pursue it any further as an art form for herself.  She always used linen, because it was sturdier and easier to manage pulling threads from….but that is what she called it *drawn thread….or pulled thread* art.”

Drawn or Pulled needle work goes all the way back to Ancient Egypt.  It  was later done all over Europe.  In the earliest days, it was mostly created for wealthy and holy people.  The pharaohs and priests.

But as we can see, it has worked its way down to regular people and hankies, some more decorative than others.

I had never seen needle work like I saw in the hankie above before receiving them from so many of you over the years.

When I first saw them I thought they must be machine made, it seemed almost impossible that such fine detail was done by hand.   But the more I collected, and the closer I looked, I could see that they were handmade.

The technique is done by “removing threads from the weft or warp of the fabric and bundling them together.”  I can see why Susan’s mother liked to work with linen, (which I read is the fabric the embroidery was originally done on) because the threads are a bit easier to distinguish from one another.

Hardanger, the name that Lynn knows the technique by  “gets its name from the district of Hardanger in Western Norway.”  In Norway it is also known simply  as “whitework”.

As I use my sewing machine to stitch these amazing hankies together, I am in awe of the work that went into them and their history.  I think of the women who made them and carried them around.

I’m so glad to be able to give them a second life in my quilt.  They have been hidden away in draws and closets and even in the bin in my own studio for long enough.